Adam Silver: NBA 'might move' on idea of top-16 teams making playoffs regardless of conference

[Charlie Brown]

http://beta.thescore.com/nba/news/478603

If the playoffs started today..

1 San Antonio
2 Oklahoma City
3 LA Clippers
4 Miami
5 Indiana
6 Houston
7 Portland
8 Golden State
9 Dallas
10 Chicago
11 Memphis
12 Phoenix
13 Toronto
14 Brooklyn
15 Washington
16 Charlotte
OUT Minnesota
OUT Atlanta
OUT Denver
OUT New York

[enlightenment]

If he were to do this, he needs to fix the ENTIRE conference/division system.

[white men can't jump]

In principle I don't mind the idea, but I'm not sure how well it works out practically speaking.

Do you keep the same games played against conference/division opponents? It would make sense to balance it out.

But if you spread out the inter-conference games to balance out strength of schedule, does the stronger conference then become even stronger in terms of playoff spots earned?

Do you really want 12 teams from one conference in the playoffs for example? How does that work for showing TV games if schedules have to accommodate lots of teams in the same timezone?

And then how do you decide matchups if you get 10-12 teams from one conference? Does seeding then just go generally by record for the whole bracket? Is it fair to have one team become the 4th or 5th seed if they win their conference? What if it's an odd year and the top 3-4 teams in the stronger conference have worse records than the top 2 teams in the weaker conference?

[JimiCliff]

In principle I don't mind the idea, but I'm not sure how well it works out practically speaking.

Do you keep the same games played against conference/division opponents? It would make sense to balance it out.

But if you spread out the inter-conference games to balance out strength of schedule, does the stronger conference then become even stronger in terms of playoff spots earned?

Do you really want 12 teams from one conference in the playoffs for example? How does that work for showing TV games if schedules have to accommodate lots of teams in the same timezone?

And then how do you decide matchups if you get 10-12 teams from one conference? Does seeding then just go generally by record for the whole bracket? Is it fair to have one team become the 4th or 5th seed if they win their conference? What if it's an odd year and the top 3-4 teams in the stronger conference have worse records than the top 2 teams in the weaker conference?

These are all great points, and should be considered.

For me though, what's clear is that whatever 'unfairness' might come from them is much less unfair than what we've been seeing for the past dozen years or so, where the top teams left out of the Western playoffs are obviously stronger than the the low seeds of the East bracket. I say fix this immediately by eliminating conference seeding, then deal with the next problems as they appear.

I don't see how eliminating conference seeding could possibly be worse than what we have now.

And if the West has 12 twelve teams deserving to be in the playoffs, so be it.

[isaacthompson]

I like the idea a lot. Evens out the strong West and the weak East. Teams that deserve to be in the post-season (record-wise) are there.

[Charlie Brown]

I like the idea a lot. Evens out the strong West and the weak East. Teams that deserve to be in the post-season (record-wise) are there.

yup, and when you look at it, that's 7 from the east and 9 from the west which is more even then I thought it would be, although most of the eastern teams are near the bottom

[Puffer]

It would fix the drafting as well.

[BobLoblaw]

I'm not a big fan of that change. I think it's never going to be totally fair anyway. I think conferences promote local rivalries because some teams face off year after year after year, which makes for great TV. Also, the end of regular season is a bit more fun too, since you have two races for the final playoffs spots instead of one. Dallas/Grizzlies/Suns battling in the West while Hawks/Knicks race in the East is more fun than Charlotte and Minnesota racing for one no.16 spot, IMO.

One extra 48 wins team in the playoffs doesn't matter all that much. Phoenix instead of Atlanta, that's pretty cool, but there's no time to watch all of 1st round anyway.

I think they should focus on the root of the problem. All these teams wouldn't suck as much if they weren't encouraged to suck by the draft system. Now we have teams intentionally be bad for years, and then some these teams find out they don't have a winning culture anymore and their GM while good at losing isn't nearly as good at winning.