Cover for The Hybrid Season

The Hybrid Season

A Scheduling Reframe for the NBA, Its Partners, and Its Fans

An independent whitepaper proposing a structural upgrade to the NBA's regular season: what if the league reshuffled teams into intra-conference groups after the All-Star break turning February into playoff qualification and eliminating meaningless games? Written from the perspective of a developer and systems thinker, this project blends schedule logic, labor integrity, and fan narrative to reimagine late-season stakes without disrupting the 82 game model.

Sports StrategyLeague DesignCompetition StructureFan Engagement
Published: May 13, 2025
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The Approach

Scott Jellen is an independent researcher working at the intersection of protocol design, rights modeling, and interoperability. He is the creator of the Universal Sports Graph (USG), a standards-grade framework for sports rights and access, spanning RFC-style specifications and a versioned registry. His ongoing work includes whitepapers, briefs, and standards-oriented models that clarify incentives and modernize institutional systems.

© 2025 Scott Jellen. All rights reserved.