I don't get into NBA this early in the season: The reason why is simple

After such an exciting WNBA season, which I am still in awe that I enjoyed it as much as I did, one would presume that the transition into the NBA season would be something that a basketball fan would definitely be looking forward to but for me, just like all years in the past, I am generally uninterested at the beginning of the season. It has always been this way for me and the reason behind it is simple: The season is just too damn long in the NBA.

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From a business standpoint it makes sense that the season for all teams is a minimum of 82 games because that means much more revenue from ticket sales and merchandise etc. From a fan's point of view this is, in my opinion, an rather insane amount of games to have in a season. Although I realize that it is this way purely because it was always (until now) a charity league, the WNBA season is far more manageable at less than half the amount of games.

I don't have a geographical favorite team, but I have been a Celtics fan since the 80's when Larry Bird, McHale, and the crew were at the center of keeping that team a top franchise. So that is the team I follow. This early in the season though, I very rarely will watch an entire game.

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At this point in the season I just tend to look at stats and also realize that they are going to change wildly as the season carries on. We are only 4 games in, or 3 depending on your team in this season so that means we have just 78 games to go... lol.

When it comes to NFL, you can get a really good gauge extremely early on in the season about who is going to be good and probably even make a reasonable prediction about who is going to make the playoffs or even the Super Bowl. In the NBA, things can completely flip halfway through the season due to injuries as well as some strategic moves that teams will make where they rest up their best players and don't really even try to win games until it becomes necessary.

A friend of mine has said in the past that every NBA game is decided in the last 5 minutes of the game and while the early games of the season count just as much as the later ones, for me it takes a while before I am really going to be glued to the screen.

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Just looking at the Celtics games for November is kind of overwhelming because that is a ton of games. I can relate why these guys get paid so much because that is a lot of travel, a lot of practice, and a ton of activity. They also don't get much of an off-season since the season is 9 months long, perhaps more depending on how well the team does in the playoffs.

To me this is too long and too many games and this is why my enthusiasm has to wait until a bit later in the season before I really start to watch and I wonder how many of the players kind of feel the same way. Are they saving it for later? I think they would kind of have to do so because even though these are peak performance athletes, the body can only take so much.

I tend to enjoy sports more when there is only a game, or perhaps two, every week. This business of sometimes having 4 games in a single week and over 1200 games for all teams combined is just too much IMO.

The NBA makes a ton of money on this though and there is no good reason why they would ever change this. For me and most of the NBA fans that I know we normally tend to wait until around late December before we really even start paying attention. While I am sure there are other sports in the world that take up nearly the entire year, this is the only sport in USA that I am aware that they really drag out the season as long as possible.

What about you? Do you think they are milking this too much or are you happy to have it on 3/4 of the year?