This, like almost everything Cuban says, is trolling. Same thing as JCDenton posts, except Cuban can convince journalists to list it as a headline. On topic -- the East just has bad management. Anyone who reads Clutchfans could make the Knicks into contenders.
The NBA kinda did this to itself in making their product so superstar oriented , marketing players over teams .... Stars get calls & get away with a lot of things outside the rules that give them an advantage over the average NBA player. I think max contracts also play a part in this , allowing teams to sign multiple stars at a rate less then their impact on the teams record .... Just doing away with those max contracts would spread the real star players out amongst more teams like Miami , Cleveland , Boston & LA over the years with multiple star players. Lebron , Wade ,Durant , Harden , Melo , Kobe , Aldridge , CP3 , Griffin and the like would command a much greater percentage of their teams respective salary cap while the bit players shared the rest. The players union probably wouldn't like it ..... But it would create a more competitive NBA. Consider the value of Lebron who took a team of scrubs on several deep playoff runs in Cleveland .... He's worth considerably more that the max contract allows him to be paid in terms of wins & losses.
Word. Contraction and the elimination of divisions/conferences. And also shorten the damn season, so back to backs can be eliminated.
I have no idea how you could have 3 conferences in a playoff system. So who plays who in the finals after the 3 conference champions are crowned? 4 Conferences would make more sense then. Or bring back the old 4 divisions of the NBA and abolish the conferences (Remember the old Pacific, Midwest, Central and Atlantic divisions?). Still causes issues with competitiveness within different divisions. But at least the divisions would have 7 or 8 teams, not 5. Imagine our division though with the current southwest + OKC/Denver/Utah. That division is no different to how difficult the Southwest is. It's actually worse.
After the Astros leaving baseball and moving to the American League, with their abomination, the designated hitter, nothing would surprise me. I hope the NBA rises above cheap tinkering in an effort to make a few more dollars. My fingers are crossed. Makes it damned hard to type, I can tell you.
Teams that are poorly run should have to face the consequence of being terrible. Teams that are run well and have a good enough team to be in the top sixteen should be given a playoff spot. Regardless of the conference. It seems unfair to the owner/players/fans to work so hard and then come up short because of their geographical location. Also. Instead of a salary cap, why not introduce a talent cap? Allow points for different talent tiers based on production, not projection or potential. Teams are allotted a certain amount of points that they can use as they wish.
should be no conferences at all. With this new realignment, they will just run in to the same problem again down the track