The NFL playoffs last one month. So does March Madness (for now). Baseball lasts all of October with a little bit going into November. The NBA playoffs started on April 17th and won’t be over until sometime in June. It’s been two weeks and we’re still in the first round. That’s just too much. For all of David Stern’s brilliant decisions in the last few years, his biggest mistake was changing the first-round playoffs from a best-of-five series to best-of-seven in 2003.

It was one of the most unnecessary moves in NBA history. Of course, it was made for the pursuit of more money from extra ticket sales and television coverage, but it’s created some terrible basketball. Did we really need to see Orlando beat Charlotte four times as opposed to three?

With the amount of talent in the NBA, it’s incredibly difficult for one team to beat any team four games in a row. There’s a major difference between being down 2-0 in a best-of-seven series and being down 2-0 with elimination and fishing trips calling your name. Teams are much more likely to buckle under the pressure of facing elimination. But, it’s easier for a team to sneak a win or two in a best-of-seven so we’re looking at five or six games series in the first round. There was no doubt that Cleveland was going to beat Chicago, but Chicago snatched a game, extending the pain and adding four days to a series that would have only lasted a week in a three-game sweep.

Also, seven-game series lower the sense of urgency, allowing teams to take games off. How else do you explain the Spurs offering up a stinker in Game 5 against the Mavs, biding time until they returned to San Antonio to finish the series? With the way the West was heading into the playoffs, a five-game series with raised stakes would have resulted in an exhilarating week of basketball where no teams took any nights off like they did this year (I’m looking at you , L.A.).

Of course, the NBA commissioner won’t care what I write, but he’ll surely care when he realizes his unnecessarily tacked-on games kill any chances of a LeBron/Kobe final. LeBron hurt his elbow in the 4th game of the Bulls series. Who knows how this will impact his ability to perform in the playoffs. As for Kobe, he’s beat up. The six-game series with Oklahoma is the last thing a laboring Bryant needed. He looks like a 40-year-old out there and, though the OKC games were entertaining, the extended schedule is going to make it difficult for an aging Laker squad to make it through another month of basketball.

Maybe I just don’t like change. Maybe I just like common sense. But the seven-game series has slowed the momentum and made the NBA playoffs more of an early drag instead of the high-octane white-knuckle event it should be.