By Mike Kahn
SportsLine Executive Editor

PORTLAND -- Even NBA commissioner David Stern will concede he's still learning about how to improve the game of basketball.

Little did he know so much would be learned from a 50-game season, mangled by the 200-day lockout over collective bargaining.

Stern told SportsLine Saturday that when the new rules committee convenes this fall, they will consider further implementation of three consecutive games after viewing the pros and cons of this season.

"What I found out was there were some positives from the compacted season," Stern said. "I'm talking about a compacted season, not a shortened season. We'll go back to the normal (82-game) schedule. The problem was no practice time. That's from the short season, but I had plenty of people tell me they liked seeing three games in a row.

"It's not the same hardship it was years ago when players had to play the night before, get up at 5:30 for a flight and do that for three nights. Now there are charter flights after games and it allows for games to be on TV every night. I'm not saying we're going to do it, but we are going to look at it."

THE FEEDBACK FROM THE PLAYOFFS has been outstanding, Stern said. Of course, some of that might have been the contrast of the horrid basketball that began this season with only two weeks of training camp, and players woefully out of shape.

Stern is convinced the lockout only exacerbated what was already a problem. The game has changed for the worse over the past decade and he knows it.

The deterioration of shooting percentages is only one of the reasons. He and the rest of the committee are of the mindset that the game has become far too physical and the defensive flexibility is a must if they are going to call the game tighter in the coming seasons.

"The game of basketball can be very beautiful or very ugly," Stern said. "It can be beautiful when they are running the floor, passing and getting baskets through teamwork. It can be very ugly when guys are just beating each other up on both ends of the floor. We need to clean that up and that's what we intend to do on this committee.

"The media jumped on this theory that the lockout is what caused the bad basketball. It did at first. But the fact of the matter is after the first month, there weren't any more excuses. It was just very sloppy basketball. I understand they missed practice time and that's a problem. We won't have that next season."

THE GOOD NEWS FROM HIS VANTAGE POINT has been the excitement involved in the playoffs in general. The new committee will be no more than eight as opposed to the previously oversized group that had a representative from each of the 29 teams.

So there will be fewer agendas and as the committee watches the playoffs, it will conclude how the postseason, as well as the regular season, will be affected by the change.

From Stern's perspective, this season has been exceptional considering the circumstances. Now they have a new seven-year collective bargaining agreement in place and money is being made as the playoffs progress.

David Stern looks to make more improvements during the off-season.(Allsport)

"The playoffs have been great for the older players and the younger players," Stern said. "The older players are still showing they are not ready to give up center stage yet, and the young players are saying, 'We're very ready to make an impact on the game right now.'

"We now know more about young teams like the Sacramento Kings. It is always a positive to bring a market that has struggled into the playoffs with a competitive young team. And look at Philadelphia being back. All of that is a positive.

"But we have learned a lot from this season. Maybe because it was a shortened season, it caused the problems that were smaller to become more obvious. Then that becomes a positive, too. We're prepared to do what we can to improve the game."