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
Updated: December 31, 2025
DOIRead Whitepaper

The Approach

Scott Jellen is an independent researcher working at the intersection of protocol design, rights modeling, and interoperability across digital and public systems. His work includes standards-oriented drafts, reference models, and whitepapers that explore how incentives, governance, and infrastructure can be represented clearly. He is currently establishing the Jellen Protocol Lab as a future home for this work. Flagship research includes the Universal Sports Graph (USG), spanning RFC-style specifications and an early reference registry.

© 2026 Scott Jellen. Licensing varies by publication.