Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr is one of the loudest and most consistent figures in the NBA advocating for a shorter regular season, and in a recent press conference, he proved it again.
Yesterday evening, after losing to the lowly Utah Jazz in the finale of a three-game road trip, Kerr stumped for a double-figure reduction in games.
“I know this will not be a popular opinion in the league office, but I will continue to say it 'cause it's obvious we need to play fewer games,” Kerr said. “We need to take 10 games off the schedule. I think it would be great for the league. And I get it — it's revenue, and you'd have to get everybody to agree to take a little less money, and that's a really hard thing to do. But what I know about the league, about coaching, about how hard it is to play the modern game with the pace and the space, I think it would be a more competitive and healthier league if we played fewer games.”
"It's obvious we need to play fewer games. We need to take 10 games off the schedule… The modern game with the pace and the space, I think it would be a more competitive and healthier league if we played fewer games."
— Steve Kerr 🤔pic.twitter.com/zk8vPWzD4Z
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) March 10, 2026
Kerr notably coached the NBA's all-time best regular-season team; in 2015-16, the Warriors won a record-setting 73 games, eclipsing the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, who won 72 games and, coincidentally, had Kerr on their roster.
Although he may be one of the loudest proponents of shortening the season, Kerr is far from the only one to do so. Several players, coaches, and media figures have claimed that the number of injuries and the severity of those injuries could be blunted if the teams played fewer games. They say that players are moving more, quicker, and in more different directions than ever before, and if the play style doesn't change, which it likely won't, how often they have to play could help keep players healthier.
However, it remains improbable that the NBA, which signed a $76 billion media rights deal in 2024, will go ahead with reducing the number of games, which could affect the television money, as well as the revenue the league's 30 teams generate from ticket sales. Shortening the season would also certainly mean a paycut for the players, considering the owners would certainly have no interest in paying the players their full salaries if they played 10 fewer games per season.
Other than COVID and lockout-affected seasons, the NBA has maintained an 82-game schedule since 1967. The league played 81 games the season before that, 80 games from 1961 to 1966, 79 in 1960-61, 75 in 1959-60, and 72 from 1953 to 1959. Before 1953, the number of games fluctuated from 48 to 69.
