By Brian Covert

On second thought, maybe this NBA season wasn’t such a good idea.

Seriously, 66-games in a condensed period of time, with its resulting array of back-to-backs and five games in six nights, isn’t conducive to high quality basketball.

Take last night’s TNT doubleheader broadcast, the NBA comparison of the NFL’s Sunday Night and Monday night football, often featuring two somewhat marquee matches to advertise the best of the association.

Last night’s first game featured the New York Knicks versus the Memphis Grizzlies live from Memphis. On paper it looked like an intriguing matchup - one of the league’s flagship franchises with two of the league’s marquee talents in Amar’e and Melo playing last year’s Cinderella story with their own stock of talent. Pretty good, right?

Instead what we got was a Knicks squad that was playing its third game in four nights, lost Melo early, turned the ball over 18 times and wound up shooting a woeful 37% from the field. The only thing that stopped them from getting completely smacked was a similarly inept Grizzlies squad that was a collective 20-30 from the free-throw line and turned the ball over 16 times in a 94-83 Memphis victory (well under the 192.5 total for those keeping track).

Another example of this proliferation of unfortunate basketball is the most recent stretch of our beloved Toronto Raptors (we’re all Raps fans on Cuzoogle, aren’t we?). Playing a five game in six-night stint, the Raps averaged 82.6 points, shooting 40.6 percent from the field and losing 4 of 5 including nightmarish losses to the New Jersey Nets and Washington Wizards (they went under the total in 4 of 5 for those still keeping track).

Honestly though, what can one expect from a stretch that would tire even Lance Armstrong? But this is what you get when you have a labor disagreement and then try to push a heavy schedule into a short period of time. Throw in a shortened training camp after several months of what was probably less activity for many of the players and we can’t really be surprised.

So where does this leave us? Unfortunately I can’t see much changing and it may even get worse. Sure the players will get their touch and range back but this will be offset by the games beginning to pile up.

Furthermore, the wear and tear of the condensed schedule will start to take its toll. In the two examples above, Melo left last night’s game after tweaking his ankle and wrist while Andrea Bargnani strained a calf and looks to be out for a little bit in the Raps lost to Sacto Wednesday. Interesting to note these injuries are often related to fatigue and not competition or such.

The lesson to be learned through all of this: when coming back from a labor issue, maybe the leagues and the unions should get the dollar signs out of their eyes and consider the product before re-introducing themselves to the fans.

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