The NBA Attempting To Make Their Draft A 2 Day Event Is Beyond Stupid

Sarah Stier. Getty Images.

ESPN - The NBA is finalizing plans to turn the 2024 draft into a two-night event in Brooklyn, sources told ESPN on Thursday.The draft would split into first and second rounds on successive nights -- June 26-27 -- but the league must still get final approval from the National Basketball Players Association before the plan can be made official, sources said.

The NBA and the union have been in regular conversation, sources said. Among a number of reasons for the expansion of the event, including the programming for television rights partners, the NBA and teams are hopeful that the hours between Wednesday night's first round and Thursday's second round will give teams more time to make trades and plan out strategies for the second night.

Teams have been frustrated with the chaotic speed of the second round and believe there could be more order in the process with a day between the picks.

While this seems like something that was unavoidable, I don't think I'm alone when I say that I hate this idea. I mean, I'm still going to watch every second and tune in for the second night to watch the 2nd round, but let's be honest, no fan asked for this. It's like back in 2010 when the NFL went from having a 2 day draft over the weekend to making the first round on Thursday night. It used to be so awesome to devote your entire weekend to the NFL draft, but just like everything in this world, money talks. The NFL saw an opportunity to make more money, so they changed something we all loved. Even all these years later, it's still not as great as how things used to be when the Draft was on Saturday/Sunday.

Once the NFL did it, you knew it was only a matter of time before the NBA followed suit. The only problem there is that people will watch every round of the NFL draft, and given that there are over 2x the number of rounds, you can understand why it's now three days. I'm not sure anyone outside of basketball sickos actually watches the 2nd round of the NBA draft, and this is while things are all happening on the same night!

For every Nikola Jokic, there are about a billion 2nd rounders who never even see an NBA court. I'm not sure what the NBA told their media partners about what they should expect in terms of ratings, but the numbers are going to be a disaster. It's pretty clear, the NBA is not the NFL, it will never be the NFL, and that's OK! 

And also, spare me about the whole "there's not enough time in the 2nd round to make deals" bullshit. If that were the case, then just bump up the time everyone has on the clock before they have to make a decision. Instead of going from 5 minutes between picks in the 1st round to 2 minutes in the 2nd round, just make both 5 minutes. I'm to believe that teams aren't talking about potential deals involving 2nd round picks at any point before the 2nd round? No chance. Not only that, but if you feel rushed and you make a bad decision, tough shit. That's life. 

Let's just call this what it truly is. It's a money grab. It's a way for the NBA to bring in more cash via advertisers, the same way it was for the NFL. I would argue that instead of ruining the draft format and forcing it into a second night, how about the NBA and ESPN spend more time fixing the actual product? The actual coverage during the draft stinks. 

Until that gets fixed, I'm not sure anything else matters. You can have it be one day, two days, three days etc. 

Again, I'm going to watch because this league and this sport has me by the balls, but I think we can all agree this is a terrible idea.