I personally will go on record wouldn't mind a high lotto pick and miss the playoffs to be honest. If we get a top 3 pick in this years PG heavy class you get my point
Don't you think the talent disparity is because of mismanagement? Somebody brought up the Hawks as a good example. When you pass up Chris Paul AND Deron Williams for Marvin Williams when you needed a PG, you deserve to suck. Then you have the Knicks, nuff said. 14th lottery team has a slim to none chance of getting a top 3 pick, it's not a very good point. I don't think there will be 14 stud PGs in the next draft...
It's cyclical. Right now the West is much stronger than the East but IMO it is not as bad as a few years ago. Lebron, Bosh, Howard, Wade are all guys who will remain as 4 of the best players in the game for the next 8-10 years. The vast majority of the stars in the West are either in their prime or on the downside of their careers. Duncan, Kobe, Nash, Dirk, Ginobli, Tmac, Yao are all guys who will either be done or noticeably slower in 5 years. I don't think the format should change every time a few teams get left out. Things will balance out if left alone.
the nba has pretty much the exact same playoff structure as every other league. 2 conferences, the teams in each conference play each other more than they play teams in the other conference, teams from opposite conferences don't meet in the playoffs until the finals. nfl, mlb, nba, nhl, they all have the same system. just because the west's advantage over the east is absurd doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the structure. the nfl didn't change their format when the nfc won like 13 straight super bowls. mlb didn't change while the NL was dominating the AL in the 70s. the nba isn't going to change it b/c the west is dominating the east. even in a world of chartered flights, geographically grouping the teams and having unbalanced schedules still make sense for travel and tv watching purposes. and those factors usually make having the conferences separate entities for playoff purposes the sensible thing to do. it sucks possible not making the playoffs while winning 47 or 48, but you know if they did change it, things would change and then people would b**** they liked the old way better, or want another knew way. the 4 major sports have had the same playoff structure for 60-100+ years, they're probably not going to change now.
So what if things balance out. If the top 16 teams make the playoffs(and everyone plays the same schedule), that doesn't make it unfair if things balance out, or if the East gets stronger than the West, it will just always be fair.
Realigning them does not fix the issue, AFC top to bottom is WAY better than the NFC regardless of the Super Upset, AL is WAYYY better from top to bottom than the NL. The problem is, and it is a problem in all of these leagues, the playoffs are not always the best 16 teams out there and it should be. Maybe you give the division leaders an automatic bid then the other 8 spots are not limited by division or conference. I don't know the best answer, but I know our current one leads to some realllly lame games.
It's like this in all three major sports leagues. NFL just had a 10-6 team in the superior conference miss playoffs while a 9-7 team in the inferior conference get in. And a 10-6 team in the inferior won it all over the 16-0 superior conference team. MLB a couple years ago had a division winner with a record of 83-79 get in playoffs while 5 teams with better records (4 in the better league) missed. What did that 83 win team do in the playoffs? Win the World Series.
While I think the playoff structure should be changed I think it would be pretty unfair just to take the top 16 straight up...sure it looks good now, but years down the line we'd be complaining that the Rockets were hurt because of how tough their schedule was. In an ideal world, you'd play the same number of games with each time with an equal number of home games and away games. Unfortunatley it wouldn't really work. If you had 4 matchups against each team in the leauge (2 home and 2 away of course) you'd end up with 116 games which is really just ridiculously long - players would be exhausted come playoff time. If you brought it down to 2 matchups against each year you'd end up with a mere 58 games - again, it wouldn't work. The season is too short, the NBA would lose too much revenue. The closest thing I could think of to be fair would be to eliminate the conferences and have each team matchup 3 times a year which would be an 87 game season. It's only 5 more games than the current season so the length (although some would argue that 82 is already too long) isn't too bad. But of course the obvious draw back to such a plan is that you wouldn't have an equal number of home and away games with any team, moreover half the teams would have one more home game than the other half did each year. However, if you alternated this between years (i.e. in 07-08 Dallas has 2 home games to the Rockets 1 and then in 08-09 Dallas has 1 home game to the Rocket's 2) if would pretty much even out in the end. So that's my proposition, eliminate the conferences, add 5 games and then take the top 16...but of course I acknowledge, it is far from a perfect solution.
Finally a discussion about this! As Italian (and so european), I still have to understand why you (americans) love so much to divide all of your sports into division and even conference. Every major sport in every major country don't do that. Don't even allow every team to have more games against some opponent and few against others. In soccer, basket, rugby, volley etc. you have to meet the same number of team for the same number of games. Your divisions/conferences system here looks pretty stupid and not so legit.
The league can also just maintain the 82 game season and arrange it so that you only play 5 teams twice, instead of 3 times a year. Of course, you'd have to make it cyclic so that every X number of years, every team has played every team the same number of times. NFL has the same problem, where not every team plays every other team every year, but they deal with it.
The system itself isnt absurd. It IS cyclical, just that this time the cycle hasnt changed. For a while. Teams and media dont seem focused on divisions at all. Its all about the playoff seeding. I dont think they'll change the structure any time soon. Playing each team equal number of times means they'll probably have to lessen the amount of games played. MORE travel costs + less tickets sold = owners rejection. Though on 2nd thought, will there really be THAT much difference in travel going to Indiana an extra time instead of traveling to Phoenix? Just means more extended road trips and longer home stands.
I would do this: The number two seeds from each conference should swap places. So in other words if you had the west as: 1. Phoenix 2. New Orleans 3. Dallas 4. Lakers and the East as 1. Boston 2. Detroit 3. Orlando 4. Cleveland The you swamp New Orleans with Detroit This guarantee that the top two teams in the NBA will have a chance at facing off. If the top two teams are from the same conference, then they will meet in the finals. If the top two teams are the one seeds from each conference, they will both have to knock of the two seed from the other conference to get to the finals. This would prevent a New jersey or clevland from getting sweep in a boring finals.
I was thinking about this some more also. The one thing we might lose if we go to a Sweet 16 playoff style is playoff rivalries. Teams like the Suns and the Lakers are natural playoff rivals but since they have better records then most of the East, they may not see each other until the final 4 or the final 2. Then the potential travel cost in the early rounds. Say the Lakers and the Blazers have one of the best records and they are matched up to maybe the Wizards or the Magic in the first round. That's some cross country flying for 1 series. And it could happen in each following series. Then after each round, do you reseed because there might be upsets in the first round? Or just keep everybody in the same brackets and just use W/L records and tiebreakers to determine homecourt advantage? I'm for the latter cause the former means we'd have to wait until all the series are finished, stretching the playoffs more then it should be. As for the regular season, I would keep it the same. You need natural rivalries, so I think geographic divisional rivalries fits best. The Lakers and the Suns have been duking it out for years and we have natural rivalries with the Spurs and Mavs. So its a good idea that we face our division rivals more then other teams. Facing each team at least twice is good for fans who want to see stars like Lebron or Kobe at least one time in person. That's 60 games to play each team for a home and away game. Then 10 more games for the 5 divisional teams to play each other 4 times. Then the remaining 12 games are for the teams of other divisions in the same conference. They play those teams 3 times and for 2 teams 4 times. I don't know how they determine those two 4th games for non divisional conference games, but it would be unfair if the Jazz get the Clippers and the Grizz for a 4th game while we get the Suns and the Nuggets 4 times. Hoping they use either a strength of scheduling or rotate it each year, I'd go for the former. Sweet Lou 4 2: sorry I don't like your idea, too unconventional for a major sports league, sounds like something out of WWE Royal Rumble rules, in other words too hokie/corny.
