No one makes huge NBA decisions without asking the basketball great do they? Well, apparently Michael Jordan wasn’t on the conference call because he said he’s shocked that the NBA is looking to shorten the season.
In the last few days it was decided by the NBA that they would look into either shortening the season or shortening the minutes played per game. Basketball superstars Dirk Nowitzki and Lebron James have vocally stated they rather play longer minutes to have a shorter season in the mid 60’s. But Michael Jordan? This was news to him, shorten the season? How can you not love the game and want to play for as long as you can?
“I love both of those guys, but as an owner who played the game, I loved playing,”Jordan told ESPN.com. “If I wasn’t playing 82 games, I still would’ve been playing somewhere else because that’s the love for the game I had. As a player, I never thought 82 games was an issue.”
“I would never shorten the game by four minutes,” Jordan said, “unless guys were having physical issues. It’s not like football. We don’t really have to worry about concussions and some of the physical damage that football players deal with after they retire. I can understand football players wanting to play fewer games from a physical standpoint. But basketball’s not the same.”
And there you have it folks, basketball isn’t the same. Not just talking from the physical stand-point but player wise, they just aren’t built the same. Superstardom in the league has superseded the love of the game. What Jordan is probably seeing is a decline in the game he loves, so its understandable to see his reserves for the new NBA ideas.
(H/T SI.com)