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SALT LAKE CITY — Even the most hardcore of NBA fans were probably wondering who the guys in Thunder jerseys were.
Oklahoma City started Zavier Simpson, Vit Krejci, Georgios Kalaitzakis, Jaylen Hoard and Isaiah Roby Wednesday against the Jazz. And then they only used three players off the bench: Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, Lindy Waters III and Melvin Frazier Jr.
Yes, the Thunder wanted to lose. Even second-year forward Aleksej Pokusevski didn't play after recording a triple-double earlier this week. He was suddenly too good to play in the Thunder's tank to the finish.
So, yeah, with the result more or less predetermined before the opening tip, Wednesday's game was fairly uninteresting.
And it's not like that is uncommon anymore. In fact, the last part of the season always seems to be kind of an anticlimactic waiting game to the playoffs. That's bad, and the NBA knows it's bad.
"The greater concern to me is a trend of star players not participating in a full complement of games," NBA commissioner Adam Silver said on Wednesday. "I think that's something we, together with the Players Association, need to address."
Silver, though, admitted he didn't have a clear solution to the problem, but he hinted at some potential ideas, including an added incentives for players to keep playing down the stretch.
"The play-in tournament, I thought, was a beginning of creating renewed incentives for teams to remain competitive and be fighting for playoff position," he said. "It may be through in-season tournaments and changes in format where we can get at it."
Silver said one of the biggest issues is that the league needs to convince consumers that each game is worth their investment. Sure, season ticket holders feel they get fair value over the course of a season, but if you went to Wednesday's game expecting to see Donovan Mitchell and anybody on the Thunder you've actually heard about, you likely left at least a bit disappointed.
And if the league does go to a game-by-game television package, who is willing to pay for that type of game?
"In many cases, you need to convince that fan, that consumer, each time that your product is worth buying, you want to put your best foot forward," Silver said.
He added that maybe the league simply has too many games.
"That's something we should look at as well," he said. "It's something, as we sit down and we're looking at new media deals and looking at a new collective bargaining agreement, we will be studying."
Shortening the season by a handful of games likely won't do anything to stop tanking — teams will just start tanking at Game 60 instead of 70. While flattening the lottery odds might help, it would also be hard to get past many owners who rely on the draft to build teams.
"I think we've got to constantly assess and look at a marketplace going forward and say, what's the best way to present our product and over how long a season?"
It was far from the best on Wednesday.
