Recession Means 15 NBA Teams Will Play Only 4 Players At A Time

NBA Commissioner David Stern today told a hastily assembled New York news conference that 15 teams were having so much financial difficulties that they were only going to be able to field four players at a time.

“Four on five can still be a good game,” Stern told reporters. “It’s like when you’re on the playground and you have an odd number of kids who want to play ball, except it’s the NBA.”

Stern said that in addition to borrowing $175 million to help the teams meet their operating costs, the 15 unspecified teams would reduce expenses further by having only four players on the court at once and reduce rosters to seven players.

“When you have only four players, you have fewer uniforms to wash, fewer socks to purchase, fewer expenses of all kinds,” Stern explained. “In this economy, we have to do everything we can to save money.”

Stern said that when teams starting four players were playing teams starting five players, “We’ll give the team four players an extra three or four points a quarter, to keep things fair.”

Stern said that the NBA would also attempt to save money by “not replacing the net on the basketball hoops, using basketballs longer, and eliminating referees and having players call fouls on themselves, like tennis players do.”

Fans will “get used to four on five, or four on four,” Stern promised. “There’s nothing magical about five on five. If the economy keeps going south, we may reduce rosters further and only play one-on-one.”