Matt Barnes believes shorter season will help the Los Angeles Lakers – NBA Update
Los Angeles Lakers star Matt Barnes is sure that a shorter NBA season could be beneficial for his team.
The notorious forward believed the Lakers were a little over the hill, and if they were to play less games they would be in better shape come playoffs time.
The Los Angeles Lakers are not a very old team, with centre Andrew Bynum still in his early 20s and other young players on the bench. However, the core of the team does seem to be aging quickly. The obvious example is point guard
Derek Fisher, the veteran whose age caught up with him last season as he struggled to contain quicker and younger playmakers from all over the NBA.
Kobe Bryant is 33 years old already, although he is still super productive, but players like Ron Artest, Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol are not likely to get any better from this point on, so Barnes does have a point.
What he fears though is that the league would stack up the games in close proximity, which could actually hurt Los Angeles. If that weren’t to happen, Barnes is comfortable with a short season,
"I think it's great for us, as long as they don't pile on tons of games. Everyone knows we're a little older team, and we can use less games. As long as we don't have to play five games in seven nights, that wouldn't be very beneficial.
But as long as we can come to a smart amount of games and still have the proper time to rest in between games, I think it's going to be very beneficial for our team to cut 20 games off the season," Barnes said in an interview with ESPN.
It looks as though the Lakers forward will get his wish too. The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association broke off labour talks once again on Friday, and David Stern subsequently announced the cancellation of games
throughout November.
He also said that it was now impractical to think about an 82 game season and with the many complexities of involved like travelling and scheduling, it is highly unlikely the league will try and condense games either.
So that is a definite plus for Barnes, who has also enjoyed the long off season as it helped him nurse a knee injury. After the long recuperating period, he now believes he is all healthy and ready to go.
"I'm back completely playing, full speed ahead," he said. "This last 10 percent and just getting over the fact that I've never had an injury before. My knee is healed but in my mind it's still kind of that I need to baby it."
There’s no telling though when exactly, or if, the season will start.
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