I'm not really against this, but I think it's only fair that they get rid of the divisions all-together. We know they won't abolish the conferences, but the SW Division could have had two 60 win teams last year with a more balanced schedule. I am glad the league is looking at this though. The WC is getting more brutal every year.
Is the schedule really that unbalanced? The Rockets played the Mavs as many times as they played the Blazers.
I think they should shorten the schedule to 72 games. This allows for a balanced schedule within conference where every team plays each team from the other conference twice and each team from the same conference three times. It would also eliminate the need to go beyond head-to-head matchup in determining any two-way tie-breaker.
Or keep the 82-game format but have those 4 teams you only play twice be from the opposite conference for each team
"Ultimately where we came out is this notion of 1 through 16 seeding, while it seems attractive in many ways, because of the additional travel that will result, it just doesn't seem like a good idea at the moment," Silver said earlier this month. "This notion of, for example, this team (Golden State) would have played Boston in the first round under a 1‑through‑16 seeding and would have had to crisscross back and forth across the country, which does not seem like a good idea, especially based on the earlier question based on the health of our players, and focusing on actually reducing the amount of travel and back‑to‑back."
These athletes are being shuttled around while on the road, most teams have their own jet and they can configure them how they want to provide the optimum environment for the team while they travel (massage tables, big screen to review film, etc) and with the new TV deal will be making even more money. Reward the top 16 teams, i'm sure a 9-11 team in the west would travel to china for road games to make the playoffs rather than see 3 teams in the east get to play with 15-20 less wins each year.
This speaks to my point. No one really knows it, but if you eliminated from the Rockets and Clippers records the teams that they did not play the same number of games, so that you are then only looking at common opponents, the Rockets had the better record. Tiebreakers should be common opponent records imo But whatever ... Still an improvement with this change
Most eastern conf teams should be hoping for this since it makes it easier to tank. As of right now, teams with losing records are making the playoffs (with zero shot at the title) and barely being able to build through the draft (because they made the playoffs). It's the ultimate mediocrity treadmill.
I really hippie since 1967. Hello, fellow hippie. What the hell is Silver doing? Is he going to move the Rockets to the American League? I hate the designated hitter.
