Opening night shows ongoing problem for the NBA

The Detroit Pistons will start their season tonight against the Indiana Pacers, but the NBA had two marquee games last night to tip off the season. 

The Celtics eviscerated the new-look Knicks, which I am sure will not cause an overreaction from either of their famously tempered and calm fanbases.  

The Lakers beat the Timberwolves behind a big night from Anthony Davis, so some of the top teams and talent were on display on the first night of the season. 

The problem was that neither game was particularly good. The Celtics blew out the Knicks and the Lakers/’Wolves score was closer than the game actually was. 

The NBA has as much talent as ever, but there have been a ton of blowouts in the last few seasons, culminating last year when there were very few close games in the playoffs. Teams exchanged blowouts and it showed in the ratings, which were down from the year before. 

Are lopsided scores a problem for the NBA? Yes and no. 

The NBA’s blowout problem 

Boston had a margin of victory of over 10 last season, a number we haven’t seen since the 2016-17 Golden State Warriors. 

The Celtics’ average biggest lead was over 20, again, tops since those same Warriors. This reflects that Boston had a dominant season in a mediocre conference where there really wasn’t anyone to challenge them. 

But it wasn’t just the Celtics. There were three teams last season (Boston, OKC, MIN) whose average margin of victory would have led the NBA in most seasons going back nearly a decade. 

Last season marked the first time two teams led by 35+ points at half in the same night during the shot-clock era according to ESPN and OKC's 62-point humiliation of the Trail Blazers was the 5th-largest blowout in NBA history.

The NBA also had its most 20+ point comebacks in league history last season, so some blowouts are exciting, but it’s more telling that there were that many teams that got down 20 at some point in a game. Also, a lot of these comebacks came in garbage time when the game was already decided, hardly entertaining basketball.

Part of this is a disparity of talent between the best and worst NBA teams, especially with several teams tanking every season which is going to lead to more lopsided games. 

There is also more 3-point shooting, which can lead to huge runs, the flip side being that you are never really out of a modern NBA game, even if you get down 20 in the first half. 

There is no easy solution, especially when a lot of people don’t recognize this as a problem, but when you look through the scores of last year’s playoffs, there just weren’t that many entertaining games, including the Finals, which only had two games that weren’t decided by double-digits, both seven-point wins for the Celtics. 

It’s also possible that last season was an anomaly, so there is no need to panic, but with two dud games last night, it is already something to monitor as the season progresses.