I don't get breaking the conferences into three divisions...

I'm with you, the whole division thing is crap... the best reconds in the East and West 1-8 should be what everyone goes by...

 

thanks to the atlantic sucking so much, the 6th seed in the east this year may very well have homecourt in the first round. assuming the best record gets homecourt always applies.

 

The should just have Eastern and Western Conf. and the top 8 teams from each makes it to the playoff.

 

Outside of 4 playoff spots, divisions are totally meaningless. The division winners that don't have the best record in the conference get a boost, but nothing else is affected by divisions. I think it would be interesting to see an unbalanced schedule, like the NFL and MLB have, where you would play teams in your own division more. Right now, that would be pretty tough on the Rockets though, being in the strongest division. Kind of like being the Orioles. Maybe have four divisions and the top two from each division go to the playoffs. It would certainly help build meaningful and heated rivalries, a la Astros and Cardinals (or Sox/Yankees for us non-Houstonians).

 

i wouldnt mind the 3 divisions if the houston rocket was in the atlantic.

 

This is classic Stern: the real reason they split into 6 divisions was so that more fans would think their team is doing well. Right now, 12 cities out of the 30 can say that they're first or second in the division, giving them encouragment, and getting them a little more excited (to buy tickets, buy merchandise, etc). Even the teams that are third in the division don't look as bad to the fans as being 4th or 5th last year in a larger division.

It's always about money.

Evan

 

I don't think it works that way. Seattle had homecourt in '93 even though Houston was the 2-seed.

And I agree that Stern sucks.

 

First round, the division winners get homecourt. After the first round, best record alone determines homecourt.

Evan

 

6 x 5 = 30

 

If we're so keen on dispensing with divisions, why keep the conferences? How about the 16 best records in the league make it to the playoffs and they are matched up by record. It would save the NBA the embarassment of having Philadelphia taking a playoff spot with a .459 record.

 

I was thinking the other day, that the nba could generate a lot of midseason interest and revenue with Division tournaments. Single elimination.

 

with 30 teams , do the Rockets still play all the estern conference teams twice, and the western conference teams 4 times?

How does that work? Wouldnt the addition of the bobcats throw that whole equation off?

 

Why did they do it? Because big markets like NYC need a playoff team, even when they suck.

 

It did. That's why we now play some non-division Western Conference teams only 3 times.

When I first heard about the realignment, I was trying to figure out how they'd re-work the schedule, and thought that they'd make some preseason games 'real' and have a 85 game schedule. They could have really made things fun and brought out good rivalries if they had teams play within the division 5 times (20 games), same conference 3 times (30), and other conference twice (30)(80 game total), but I knew they'd never allow a decrease in total games..

Evan

 

i think you just agreed with me in that the best record got homecourt, not the high seed. right now the 6th seed has a better record than the 3rd seed.


but emjohn is saying, and i suspected in might be so for the 1st round, that division winner gets homecourt even with a worse record for the 1st round.

edit: nope, the 6th seed can have home court.

http://www.nba.com/news/realign_031117.html

Home-court advantage throughout the NBA playoffs will be based solely on regular season record, not playoff seeding, thus a divisional winner that has a higher playoff seed than an opponent will not necessarily have home-court advantage in the playoff series.


edit edit: MFer i love google. just type in nba home court rules playoffs and bam there's a link with the exact information i want.

 

If you want to be exact about it, Houston owned the better record than Seattle and was a true 2 seed when the buzzer went off in San Antonio and the regular season ended until about a second later, when David Robinson tipped the ball in well after the horn (and the season had ended) and the officials somehow ruled it a legal basket.

That still pisses me off royally; we would have beaten Seattle w/homecourt (we nearly beat'em w/o it) and I think we could (as we did the next 2 years) have beaten Phx w/Hakeem showing Barkley who the real MVP was. Then we could have had a true test against MJ's bulls.