Should the NBA abolish playoffs by conference?

We've been talking about this every year for almost 2 decades now.

 

they should do away with the "regular season" format. just have several tournaments (bracket) featuring all teams throughout the year. open the tournament to sponsors and be like tennis with different cups/opens.

then have the super tournament like "champions league" bracket by december, and be immediately followed by the all star game to cap the year.

 

The nba isn't going to do anything about anything, since the league is more popular than ever and people are watching it in droves, but the nba does have a huge problem and that is that the game pretty much sucks right now. Just like football is getting a lot less viewership because it got too greedy, the nba is going to have to do something about the 3 ball, and hand checking. This is the ugliest basketball I've ever watched.

And when the grizzlies and jazz fade there will be nothing left of real fundamental basketball, it will be all rec games.

 

So you want to go back to the '90s when it was dominated by individual ISO balls, when the only way to stop skilled players was playing physical near dirty defense? You think slow pace grind it out is "real fundamental basketball"?

 

Basketball these days is nothing more than dribble dribble, shot threes, get cheap foul calls. What I would like is more parity in the nba, which requires more team-oriented basketball than what we are seeing now. Curry, Durant coast through the game because they know they have big advantages, then you got the games were both teams shoot themselves into oblivion, and it's a blowout one way or the other. Then you got LeBron who is clearly juiced as he can be playing like he is 24 years old.

Nothing about this brand of basketball appeals to me.

They need to overhaul free agency, overhaul the rules, they need to have a hard cap, they need less biased officials. A lot of things.

 

If the NBA contracted the Nets, Pelicans, Magic and the Kings you would see more parity. I think there are too many teams right now and not enough talent to fill rosters, this problem is made worse of course when players decide to collude and form super teams. You end up with an extremely top heavy league while the rest of the talent is watered down and about 90% of teams have virtually no chance at winning a title before a season even begins.

I think franchise player tagging would also be helpful, though the NBA players union would never allow it. I think it would be good for the fans if teams could guarantee that their top draft picks would be around for at least 12 years before they get to go form their super team.

Of course, none of this stuff will ever happen and I think many NBA fans are just fine with the league having no parity because that's always been the case with the NBA. I think there are potentially millions of people out there who just like to watch the super teams beat up on everyone else, as shallow as that may sound.

 

Honestly, I go even further. If you have LeBron, you don't get a first round pick. They need to make some unbalancing measures in order for the team to get parity.

They need to have a rotisserie style player grading. If a team has a super star, they lose their first round pick, also teams without stars can have more roster spots, and can go over the cap.

Everybody wants analytics in the game, somebody should be able to figure out a counter for a team having LeBron. Lose your first round pick multiple years. Unbalancing measures is the key because basketball is just too easily manipulated right now.

I mean if you have LeBron, your cap should be 20% less than a team that doesn't have LeBron, and you lose your first round pick, and you are required to sign at least 4 guys to 6 mill contracts, without other top heavy players.

 

A bit too excessive and I think it's unfair to penalize the players like this which is why it would be nice to find a solution both sides could agree to and would help competitive balance in the game, but I digress.

My initial rant aside, I think the real question is what do the fans want? Are fans ok with super teams and a top heavy league or would they like to see more parity in the NBA? Personally, I agree with you and I would like to see more parity but I think we're in the minority on that opinion.

 

I'm not sure that the West has the three best teams. Who knows if the Spurs or the Rockets or even the Warriors can beat the Cavs in a playoff series. Anyway that's up for debate it's not certain they could. If you are talking about Regular season records though I only agree that the best 16 teams should make the playoffs regardless of conference.

It's funny that you brought this up this year, since Portland the 8th seed in the West had the same record as the 9th seed of the East Miami.
So if this was put in effect the East could very easilly have one more playoff team than the West.

A more easy change I would like to see is to make it a best of 5 series for the first 2 rounds though.

 

They should do a premier league style table with the 30 teams. Each team plays the other once at home and one away. That is 58 games a season. If two teams are tied at the top, it comes down to point differential. That way each and every team plays hard for all 48 minutes of a game. No more seeing scrubs in a blowout take the court.

 

I just don't see any team in the east getting a win against the Cavs
Cavs maybe 12-0 when they waiting for the next opponent in the finals

Golden State will be 8-0 going into the next round
just the way the ball bounces

Rocket River

 

They really need to break up the conferences again. We keep hearing about Lebron's greatness every year, but how great would he be if he had to play the Rockets, SAS, GS, Memphis or the LAC in 1st or 2nd rounds. The East playoff teams are beyond TERRIBLE. Even the better teams in the east like Toronto & Boston can't really compete with the elite West teams. I hate the fact Cleveland basically gets a free run to the finals every freakin year

 

lmao lebron and the cavs would wash the west just like the east.

the clippers lmaoooooooooooo

 

Well, as you and I agree, it is unbalanced right now. I could really give a crap about the history of the game, at this point. Until the nba implements some rotisserie concepts to its model, the league is flawed in my opinion, and it started way back with Magic and Bird, which grew the league obviously, but now that model needs to be laid to rest.

 

That would only work if there was like a champion's league, it would be pretty cool I think.

The NBA will never have parity and it has never had it.

The problem isn't the system, it's the game. In Basketball the team with the best player on the court usually wins that game. Not all the time, but most of the time. The best way to have parity in the NBA is to go to a single game elimination tournament like college. That means a guy like Lebron could have a bad night, or someone on the opposing team could get hot for a game and upset his teams.

The sport just doesn't lend itself to parity because one player can have such a huge effect on games. You can stack the Magic with superstars and if none of them can outplay Lebron what is the point? Really? Look at the Warriors, they were stacked last year with all-star players and still lose to....Lebron.

Remember Dirk's championship? He simply outplayed Miami's big three and dragged his team to a title.

Also, the more stars you have on a team the less they actually shine. It's like putting plants in a box. Only so many of them will get the sunshine and grow tall. Harden would have never been an MVP candidate had he stayed on the Thunder with Durant and Westbrook. He would have forever been Manu Ginobili. All you'd be doing is making star players into glorified role players.

Parity is so overrated.

 

you would need 2 more divisions and relegation if you were to go with a premier league style.

 

Isn't what you say the very reason why people want parity? They want the stars to spread more evenly throughout the league rather than concentrate in a few super teams.

If one-star-per-team is achievable (which I highly doubt), how big a chance a team can win a championship depends on how good their star is and how smart they are in constructing a team around their star, instead of the current how-many-stars-you-can-hoard.

 

They already are spread out though. Outside of the Warriors, and you have to ask yourself if players like Draymond Green and Klay Thompson would be star players if they were the best players on their teams.

A lot of guys look a ton better playing next to a HOF player like Curry. I mean, look at Kyrie before playing with Lebron and Kyrie after.

I think right now stars are pretty spread out, people have to remember that there is always around 4-8 actually elite players. You can't spread that out over how many teams we have in the NBA. If you're a team that has one of these players it's just easier to build a team than if you are trying to build a team around say...Paul George.