Divisional Realignment in the WC and Renaming

Now that the Sonics are leaving Seattle and moving to Oklahoma City, it only seems appropriate to move teams from one division to another, and change the name of the Northwest division to the Rocky Mountain Division since two of the current teams are in the Rocky Mountain states and time zone with one other team joining the division that is in the Mountain time zone during the time period that the national time is standard rather than daylight, and with a team leaving it that would be the only team left in the Pacific time zone.

As far as the teams involved in changing divisions, there are only two I have in mind. One of them is the Portland Trailblazers since they would be the only team left in the Pacific Northwest. I would move them to the Pacific Division. The other team I have in mind in moving to the newly named Rocky Mountain Division are the Phoenix Suns, since they are not geographically located close to the Pacific Ocean, but in a state where the time is Mountain time during the period of standard time, but Pacific during daylight. In the end, what I'm talking about is a swap of just two teams switching divisions with each other. The Southwest Division would remain unchanged. Here's what my alignment idea would look like in the two changed divisions with the Sonics having left Seattle to move to Oklahoma City, and perhaps becoming the Thunder.

Rocky Mountain Division (Formerly Northwest)
Denver Nuggets
Minnesota Timberwolves
Oklahoma City Thunder
Phoenix Suns
Utah Jazz

Pacific Division
Golden State Warriors
Los Angeles Clippers
Los Angeles Lakers
Portland Trailblazers
Sacramento Kings​

Anyone have any other ideas of divisional alignment? I don't see any other realignment possible in the EC or even the Southwest division unless there was expansion, which is something I'm no advocate of in any of our major professional sports due to talent being severely watered down in all of them.

 

Just the Sonics move to Oklahoma City. I know the changing of the team's nickname is in the works, but I'm just waiting for league approval on that one.

I've heard no plans of the league doing divisional realignment in light of the Sonics' relocation.

 

I'm with you on that one. All of the other three major professional sports put on a heavy emphasis on divisional play with their scheduling. Heck, even the Arena Football League emphasizes divisional play with its scheduling.

If we were to ever see the Phoenix Suns in the same division with the Utah Jazz with unbalanced scheduling, there would be a pretty heated rivalry between those two teams. I can remember that rivalry being pretty well established as far back as the early 1990s.

 

Luckily, we haven't seen a team get in the playoffs just by winning its division, but only had at least the 9th best record in its conference. I still think it could happen with the balanced schedule the NBA has.

Just think, in 1994, if not for the season-ending players' strike in MLB, we would have seen a sub-.500 team make the playoffs (would have been a first time ever in that major professional sport) because of it winning its division when scheduling was balanced that year.

 

Yes, they would, but the only problem is there are already five teams that I couldn't see fit in other divisions within the WC geographically. With no expansion, there would be no moving teams over to the EC.

As long as there are 30 teams in the league, and it being broken down into two conferences with three divisions in each one, I'm sure the league intends to have 5 teams in each division, period.