Silver: competition committee will look at whether divisions have outlived usefulness.

Divisions are cool. Giving the winner of a Division a guaranteed top 4 seed is ludicrous.

I think that the NBA might have to look at a redistribution of the Teams.

 

You can ask the same question about conferences.

 

14 western conference team playoffs

 

I agree. Its ridiculous, especially considering that Boston is winning their division with a 10-12 record right now. No way they deserve home court advantage. That being said, neither does anyone else in the east other than Indy and Miami.

 

If the playoffs started today, there are 5 teams in the E-League below .500 who would make the playoffs. There are also 3 teams in the west who would not qualify in the west, but would qualify in the east.

The problem is deeper than the worthless division designations. The NBA is consistently not getting the best 16 teams into the playoffs. This is the problem they need to deal with in the competition committee.

 

Time to let the best records make the playoffs. A shame that losing teams are invited to play in playoffs while winning teams watch all the action from home.

 

When were divisions ever useful?

 

Hint: they have.

There's a lot of stuff that maybe could or should be done to make who gets into the playoffs, but have various downsides. There's no downside to eliminating divisions.

 

Back when teams used to play more games within their own division (i.e.- unbalanced schedule), it made "some" sense... as it did cut back on travel, especially when the Rockets were playing 6 games a year against the Spurs and Mavs each.

Conferences do still serve a purpose with the fact that team's schedule are unbalanced to more games played within each conference. If you got rid of conferences, every team would basically have to play as balanced as schedule as possible (For the Rockets, that means less games between current western conference teams, and more games against eastern conference teams).

 

In my view, divisions are meant to create rivalries due to playing eachother multiple times, however if you look at it, their isn't many rivalries based on division.

Perhaps my way of re distributing it would be to create 3 divisions for each Confrence, and based on were the team finished the year before would determine the divisions for the next year. This way the bad teams get to play eachother more in hopes that they have a fair competition and the top teams get more block buster games.

This year it would of been in the west.
Division 1
Okc
Spurs
Denvor
Clippers
Memphis

Division 2
GSW
Lakers
houston
Utah
Dallas

Division 3
Portland
Minnesota
Sacramento
Pelicans
Suns


I haven't seen someone suggest the system that I have came up with and I think it could really work

 

I thought divisions were created to save gas.

 

Eliminating divisions wouldn't do anything b/c the entire Eastern Conference sucks. But these types of things generates potential rivalries.

What the NBA needs to do is to do something to generate pressure on these poorly run teams. These teams can't be satisfied being inept/mediocre. IT's not good for the fan base.

 

Silver looking to make a stamp on his tenure right away I see. I've no problem with eliminating divisions, which aren't worth much. Or, they can do something to make divisions meaningful again, but I don't see the point.

I don't agree with the group about eliminating conferences. The East will just have to find a way to be competitive.

What does a division do besides guaranteeing a top-5 seed for the winner?

 

Technically they might not have home court advantage. Being the higher seed does not guarantee home court. Home court still goes to the team with the better record. Therefore, if Boston is 10-12 and division leader, making them the 4 seed, a 5 seed with a 11-11 record would still get home court.

 

I grew up with conferences. Bring em' back.

 

I wonder why people is complaining about conference and division when no 2 teams in the league have the same schedule...

Heat played with the Leastern teams more than any Western teams. And they won the home advantage which was crucial in winning it all.

 

These divisions also affect draft rankings, crappy teams in the east make the playoffs and so they do not enter draft lottery so they pretty much stay kinda crappy, while pretty good teams who barely miss the playoffs in the west get to draft in the lottery (pretty low in the lottery but still the lottery)...

 

Agreed that a "division winner should not be guaranteed a top 4 seed."

I would change it to say a division winner is guaranteed a "playoff spot" and that is is.

If that team's division sucks and they are the 8th seed than so be it. But a crappy division winner should not get a "top 4 seed" over a good team (with a better record) that didn't win their division.