don't have much time to elaborate (gotta get ready for work), but i can give a quick elaboration. these points also apply to pretty much every league with a pre-season.
pre-season is very important for conditioning and getting players back into game shape. if there was no pre-season and teams went straight to regular season, then the first few games would almost certainly be significantly worse in quality. there's just a massive difference between practice (even practice scrimmages) and actual live games.
it can also help players who are on the fringe of making the team get on, since there is usually expanded rosters for just the pre-season. admittedly i'm not sure how much this is employed in the NBA, but in pretty much any other league in the US and/or Canada (ie. NHL, MLB, NFL, MLS) the pre-season is used in large part for young/fringe players to prove that they deserve a roster spot over someone else. without the pre-season, a lot of these players would never get a chance to truly prove themselves.
teams also use pre-season to practice tactics, generally you see teams developing different strategies when it doesn't matter. they won't be able to do this as much in the regular season because games will actually matter, and that one game spent experimenting could be the reason you fail to make the playoffs.
sure, there generally isn't much fan interest and there is definitely a risk of injury, but there would likely be a very noticeable injury spike early in the season if the pre-season was removed.
RIP Koolboy123, Oct. 1, 1992-Apr. 27, 2016 ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ |