The NBA Needs A Mercy Rule

I’ve talked about how teams are getting their doors blown off this year at a historic rate. There have been 30 games this year in which one team has been down by 30 or more points. THIRTY GAMES! It’s happening a couple times a week, and it’s actually accelerating in the second half of this season.

Maybe the most famous example was the recent game between the Mavericks and Warriors, where Steph hit a 3 to put the Warriors up 12-11 early and then … they didn’t score again until the second quarter. The Warriors got outscored 51-17 going into halftime. They missed 18 shots in a row. Dallas scored 28 straight points before Golden State could get a bucket, one of the longest streaks of this kind in 15 years. 

THEY HAD 28 TOTAL POINTS AT HALF. And Tsunami Papi himself, Kelly Fucking Oubre, played 23 minutes and had a +/- of -41. Minus 41. Which statistically says if he had played an entire game, they would have lost by 82 Points. How is it possible to be that bad in that short amount of time? (The same night, by the way, Anferne Simons was +43 in 24 minutes which might be the biggest gap between two players in one night in history who only played half a game). 

Anyway, as bad as that is, Oklahoma City one-upped Golden State on Saturday night when they did the near impossible. In a season where the Clippers lost by FIFTY to the Mavs, OKC lost to Indiana -- THE GOD DAMN PACERS -- by 57 points on Saturday night. Think about that. With 4:12 left in the game, the Thunder were down by 67 points, one point short of the all time NBA record for sucking. 

A PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL TEAM WAS DOWN BY 67 POINTS.

I mean, these are NBA PLAYERS we’re talking about. No starter on OKC had a +/- BETTER than -24. NINE PLAYERS had a -20 or worse. That’s GOT to be a record. 

All of this got me thinking … maybe we need to be creative here. 

I have invented a new rule for your consideration. I’m calling it the Covid White Flag. It’s really pretty simple. If you fall down at ANY point in a game by 30 points? 

Game over. 

We just call it. Shower time. Better luck next game. Throw on a couple re-runs of Big Bang Theory on TBS and call it a night. 

The NBA needs a Mercy Rule, and this is it. 

Because let’s face it, NO ONE comes back from 30 down. 

Yeah, I KNOW I KNOW. I know the Celtics just came back from down 32 to the Spurs, but get this. In the history of the NBA it has happened exactly eight times. So it’s not like by calling a game when it reaches the Covid White Flag line you’re robbing the fans of some kind of epic experience. Eight games in 75 years? Yeah, we can live without that.

All I’m trying to do is save us all from watching bullshit basketball.

Putting in the Covid White Flag Mercy Rule might just be the only way to avoid these games in the future until fans come back to heckle trash play like we’ve seen at record levels this year. 

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