TIMEOUT: NBA IS BORING

The college basketball season finished only 2 days ago but I am already feeling the withdrawals. No basketball! How could this be. Oh I know...the NBA is still going on, in fact it is moving into the playoffs but like I said there is no basketball going on. The NBA is more freeze tag then it is basketball. The NBA should stand for "NOT BASKETBALL ANYMORE". It is boring and so here goes PART 1 of my blog series "Why the NBA is boring":

Reason #1: Too many timeouts

I tried watching an NBA game the other night. It was a heated contest between two playoff teams. The score was tied and there was under 1 minute left. After 5 timeouts and 15 commercials, the score was still tied and there was still under 1 minute to play. This incident made me start to think...does anyone really know how many timeouts there are in an NBA game? So I did a little research and found this:

• Each team is entitled to six (6) charged timeouts during regulation play.


• There must be two 100-second timeouts in the first and third periods and three 100-second timeouts in the second and fourth periods. If neither team has taken a timeout prior to 5:59 of the first or third period, it shall be mandatory for the Official Scorer to take it at the first dead ball and charge it to the home team. If no subsequent timeouts are taken prior to 2:59, it shall be mandatory for the Official Scorer to take it and charge it to the team not previously charged. If neither team has taken a timeout prior to 8:59 of the second or fourth period, a mandatory timeout will be called by the Official Scorer and charged to neither team. If there are no subsequent timeouts taken prior to 5:59, it shall be mandatory for the Official Scorer to take it at the first dead ball and charge it to the home team. If no subsequent timeouts are taken prior to 2:59, it shall be mandatory for the Official Scorer to take it and charge it to the team not previously charged. The Official Scorer shall notify a team when it has been charged with a mandatory timeout. Any additional timeouts in a period beyond those which are mandatory shall be 60 seconds.


• Each team is entitled to one (1) 20-second timeout per half for a total of two (2) per game, including overtimes.


• In overtime periods each team shall be allowed three (3) 60-second timeouts regardless of the number of timeouts called or remaining during regulation play or previous overtimes

As far as I can tell (you need an accountant to figure this out) that makes at least 16 timeouts during the course of the game (most being taken late in the game) not including the 6 timeouts in the overtime period. No wonder the game is boring...the players are on sitting around NOT listening to their coaches set up a one on one drive to the hoop instead of playing. It isn't unusual for a team to call a timeout, 5 seconds go off the clock and the other team then calls a timeout. I have a hard time finishing watching a game, maybe its my ADHD or maybe its that the NBA is just plain boring.