The NBA announced on October 14th that it will experiment with a 44-minute NBA game between the Brooklyn Nets and Boston Celtics. This game will take place on October 19th. All NBA games are 48 minutes with four 12-minute quarters and this game will be reduced to four 11-minute quarters. This is an attempt by the NBA to shorten the NBA games. Instead of three timeouts that are given in the 2nd and 4th quarter, there will only be two timeouts now. Most NBA games usually last about 2 ½ hours and, in my opinion, is the most fast-paced team sport there is. The fouls, full timeouts and players shooting free throws are usually what makes the games longer. If a game is close with less than a minute left to play, it can take up to five minutes to finish due to all the late game fouls and free throw attempts. The good thing with a 44-minute game is fans can see that most NBA stars still average at least 36-40 minutes a game. Also, this will allow some players more resting time. Some of the bench players won’t get as many minutes as they have with 48-minute games and they might get more DNP’s (Did Not Play) if the experiment takes effect this season. I think this is a bad idea. Two options that, I believe, would shorten the time are: 1) NBA should start with making players substitute in faster; 2) speed up the free throw attempts. With four less minutes each game in an 82-game season, it will be hard for players to break NBA records from previous years. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS? SHOULD THE NBA PLAY 44-MINUTE GAMES?
