Amazing how competitive the West is.. this will force the nba to look at a 1v16 seeding system instead of breaking it into East and West. Not a deal breaking difference between a 6 hour LA NY flight and 4.5 hour from Houston to Portland.
Why? The NBA is loving this - probably the best ratings they've had in the 1st round in forever. 1 vs 16 wouldn't be nearly as interesting TV.
There could potentially be 6 different game seven matchups. Unbelievable. And of all the series I would expect to go to a seven game series (Bulls v. Wizards) the Wizards won 4-1 lol.
So, both 1-8 matchups got to game 7 while both 4-5 matchups ended early. Buffet should've offered a billion for guessing these games, his money would've been pretty safe.
The NBA loves 7 game series. So do the team owners. More money all around. More ticket sales, more concessions, more TV money, hell I think even the refs get paid more the more games they call. WAIT. Maybe that's the conspiracy here? The refs get more money the more games there are??? Do the refs get paid on a per game basis?
The Knicks will never win because NY is the largest city and they have so many people placing bets on the Knicks. Those idiots just don't learn. Never bet on the Knicks. Ever. The NBA will ALWAYS love LA and they gave them two teams to bet on. One winner and one loser. Lakers fans still lost a lot of money betting on the Lakers during the glory years because they had to bet on them covering 15 point spreads, and not just beating teams because the payout was piss poor. Vegas is very good at manipulating anyone. I notice the Spurs always cover huge spreads because San Antonio is a smaller city and no one takes those bets. The NBA loves showing Hollywood actors at the games and they think this is great for ratings and appeal. Sure most of the players aren't white like in football and baseball, but check out these famous Hollywood celebrities enjoying the sport. This is why the Lakers can get away with paying Kobe all that money too. Rich people love sitting close to the celebs and feeling special because they can afford those seats in the lower bowl 20 rows behind Ashton Kutcher and seeing Jack Nicholson sitting courtside in his famous seat. But don't bring those black celebrities to my games to sit courtside (Sterling). He will allow Chris Rock once or twice because he appeals to everyone, but not Magic. And if it's a white actress they will make sure you see her several times. They get to knock out 2 targeted groups by showing her. Houston is the third largest city and we don't have the appeal of the other two cities that the media seems to love so we are destined for misery thanks to Vegas.
This has been the prevailing opinion since even before Donaghy came out. The NBA has a tool in the referees that it can use to influence cash flow in the playoffs.
They need to bring it back to a best of 5 series in 1st round. Before the format changed I bet there would be a bunch of 1st round 7 game series.
You do realize that the most famous NBA bettor in the world made his initial fortune betting on the fact the Lakers were UNDERVALUED in the early 2000s.
Agreed, I liked the old format better. Its all about $$$ having a best of 7 in the first round. A 5 game format in the first round would probably have the same outcome, but the NBA gets millions having the extra games. I start to get playoff fatigue by the conf. finals.......
But half the series are not all that interesting, even the two game 7 eastern conference series (with a ton of those games being relegated to NBA.TV). You also exclude more exciting teams like Minnesota and Phoenix who deserve to be in the playoffs (especially a league where more teams make the playoffs than don't). At the very least they need to take the overall top 16 teams... they can then split them up into two brackets if they need to keep the matchups closer.
Just would lead to less games, not really change the overall outcome (as no team has ever come back from 3-0)... and you prevent a team from making some big-time money on additional games.
Houston is only the 10th largest media market. Markets like DFW and SF-Oak are much more lucrative and important to the NBA than Houston.
Agree that not all the series are exciting - but I think it's an important part of what the NBA wants to create. The first thing that has to be figured out is what is the goal of changing the playoffs? Is it to create more excitement (and TV ratings) or more fairness? Because the two are very opposite goals - if you make the playoffs "more fair", then you're making it less exciting because you're making upsets more difficult. If you make it more exciting, then you're making it "less fair". So the NBA has conflicting goals to deal with.
