The playoffs: Where too much happens

The NBA playoffs are under way and it feels like an eternity ago that I watched my first playoff game this year. It also seems like an eternity until we will crown an NBA champion.

The NBA season started back in October, and each team played 82 games during that timespan.

So you mean to tell me that over the course of seven months, each team plays 82 games, but the NBA Champion will play a minimum of 16 games in a matter of three months? That's an average of about five games a month.

Baseball and football seem to get their playoffs done in about a month, though the baseball regular season seems to last forever, and the NFL season is a tad too short for my taste. So why can't the NBA take the hint and put games closer together? The only days the teams in the playoffs should get off are days when they have to travel to a different home court.

I know each series could go seven games, which makes each series longer but I have a solution for that too.

Baseball's playoff system is a best-of-five in the first round and a best-of-seven in the championship series and World Series. All NBA Playoff series are best-of-seven, from first round to finals. Just shorten the series lengths.

Here is another remedy to this long problem. Put fewer teams in the playoffs.
Of the NBA's 30 teams, 16 make it to the postseason. That's over half.

At the most there should be eight. When you get more, you are starting to reward mediocre and bad teams.

The NBA says they are "Where Amazing Happens" and the playoffs are amazing. They are also flawed.

Ratings show that nobody watches the first round of the playoffs, so get rid of it.

They have too many teams, and too many games, and too much time between games. So maybe they should change their slogan to "Where too much happens."