Adam Silver says the NBA Has 'to make a change' to its Playoff Format

If the season were to end today using your system, OKC would be the #16 seed and face ... GSW. The reason for that matchup has nothing to do with a bad playoff system but the fact that a team will be underseeded due to major injuries. No playoff system will fix that.

I understand the desire to get the better teams in the playoffs, but these proposals really only affect 1 or 2 teams, and those teams are not even in the top half of their own conference. For example, last year, the only difference in terms of teams would have been Phoenix getting in and Atlanta being left out. As it turned out, Atlanta-Indy was one of the best series of the playoffs.

What it does impact is seeding, but I think it's a net negative. The NBA is built around rivalries. By limiting your playoff opponents to your own conference, you build rivalries over time because the same teams keep playing each other every year. If you mix it all up, you'll have a bunch of random early round matchups between East and West teams that just don't care about each other. You make it much less likely that teams face up against each other over and over.

 

Well, I'm not holding out because I don't get a vote. If I did, I'd hold out for doing it the right way because I'm not particularly chomping at the bit to make any change at all. I think the current structure can work -- the league just suffers from an idiosyncratic problem of having many EC teams with bad management. Improve management and the imbalance goes away. Abolishing conferences sounds like a permanent solution to a temporary problem. If you're going to go that route, at least don't do some half-measure on top of it all.

 

I like it the way it is.....don't have much sympathy for the 9th best team in a 15 team conference that misses the playoffs.

And I agree with Major's comments regarding rivalries. East/West travel could be brutal too. Not perfect -- but pretty good the way it is.

 

To me, the 82 game number is somewhat sacred. Kind of foolish, but I can't even begin to fathom thinking about statistical accomplishments much less the changing dynamics of player health, managing the roster, whatever if the number of games change... either way. If the # of games is reduced that favors a team like San Antonio. If the number of games is increased that would favor a team like OKC this year, who needs as many games as possible to work their way up the standings.

Granted, there's nothing wrong with it being new and different... perhaps its the better format... but for the sake of consistency and historical context, I like the 82 game number.

So play every other team 2 times is 58 games. The remaining 24 would allow the team to play 3 games against every one but 5 teams. Either have it rotate so that its different teams every year, or do it in a way that tries to make strength of schedule based on prior year results somewhat equal for all teams, or do it based on rivalries... who cares, it'd still be way more balanced than it is today.

 

Something needs to be done for sure but it sucks to lose the legacy of the eastern vs western conferences Makes me sentimental.

 

I dont think its that big of a deal. The west has had some pretty bad teams also. Back to back games have a bigger impact than conference imbalances in the regular season. It would be better off reducing pre season and regular games.

 

Something please, I'm so sick of this Eastern Conference garbage.

Win% vs. West

Atlanta 13-3 (.812)
Golden St. 25-7 (.781)
Memphis 23-7 (.767)
Clippers 20-7 (.741)
Houston 20-10 (.667)
Portland 16-10 (.615)
Toronto 10-7 (.588)
New Orleans 18-13 (.581)

Washington 11-8 (.579)
Chicago 12-9 (.571)
San Antonio 18-14 (.563)
Dallas 16-13 (.552)

Atlanta seems to be legit great, but aside from them, all of the other teams out East would be fringe playoff teams in the west.

 

Conference imbalance is an issue that's been talked about quite a bit, and I agree with addressing this.

But an issue that I think may be even more important is the general lack of incentives for teams, both bad ones and good ones, to win regular season games.

On the lower end of things, the bad teams have every incentive to lose games for lottery reasons.

The mediocre/average teams are still trying to fight for a spot in the playoffs, but many of them are realizing that getting a low seed tends to just get you slaughtered in the 1st round in most cases (except maybe when you are one of those 50+win lower seeds in a really competitive West).

The teams that are certain playoff teams are going to figure out, like the Spurs did, that resting your main guys is much more important than getting a few extra wins and a home court advantage that you worked 82 games for but can be lost on one night.

The incentives for the regular season is just all out of whack.

 

My friend pointed this out the other day, and I was amazed by it. Since David Robinson was drafted in 1987, only 1 number one pick has led that team to a championship (Tim Duncan).

Tanking for that number one pick hasn't had near the success you would expect. I've always been in favor of a straight lottery, not weighted in any way.

 

Wait... what? I'm not sure I get what you're saying but either way it's 100% false.

On the conference thing... maybe just keep it the same but reduce it to 7 teams per conference followed by the two teams with the highest win %.

 

No, looks like that's right. Shaq was a #1 but didn't win a ring for the team that drafted him. Iverson got close, but lost in the Finals. Same with Howard. Lebron didn't win it (yet) for Cleveland, but even if he did at this point I don't think it should count since he left and came back. Since David Robinson, Duncan is the only one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_first_overall_NBA_draft_picks

 

Rivalries and tradition in the NBA doesn't carry the same weight that it does in the NFL and MLB. And the reason for this is is because the the big named stars and their core do not stay with the same team throughout their career. Kobe and Duncan have become the exception.

Also, your argument of the change only affecting one team doesn't matter if the schedules were balanced across the entire league. Could you imagine the disparity in records if the WC teams played half their games against the EC as opposed to the 30 they play every season? You'd have five 60+ win teams in the West and all those fringe teams in the West would bolster their record to the point where it would affect 4 teams rather than 2.

The Southwest division's record as a whole against the Eastern conference is an eyepopping 67-29 (.698) Their record against the west is 95-57(.625) and their record against themselves as a division is 25-25(.500) Their loss total against themselves is only 4 losses less than their EC loss total and they've played almost twice as many games against the EC.

If the percentages played out the rest of the way and the NBA played a conference balanced schedule (41 games played against each conference for each team) the average win total for the southwest division would be 61.1 wins.

Seriously, change needs to happen.

 

Good points about letting teams like NO in the playoffs so everyone can see budding stars like AD and gain experience.

 

I think the better solution there is to create a system that keeps stars in one place longer. HOU-PHX and HOU-UTAH and HOU-SEA and the like back during the mid to late 90's were great. Houston traded for Barkley specifically to help beat Seattle. That's a rivalry.

Certainly true - if you change the scheduling, it changes the equation.

What about teams like Atlanta making the playoffs last year (they would have been booted in favor of Phoenix without conferences)? They are now one of the 2 or 3 best teams in the NBA, and the playoff experience last year may have helped in that regard.

 

If the (revised) playoffs started today:

#1 Golden State vs. #16 Oklahoma City
#2 Atlanta vs. #15 New Orleans
#3 Memphis vs. #14 Phoenix
#4 Houston vs. #13 Milwaukee
#5 Portland vs. #12 Chicago
#6 Toronto vs. #11 Washington
#7 LA Clippers vs. #10 Cleveland
#8 Dallas vs. #9 San Antonio

Sign us up. I'd rather see the Bucks in the first round than Dallas or San Antonio as currently projected by the conference playoffs format.

 

Addressing conference imbalance via Div Winners then 10 more teams based on record, doesn't completely address conf imbalance.

That would assume everyone plays the same amount of EC and WC games. We don't, not close. The EC plays 30 games against WC teams. WC teams play 52 games against WC teams.

Seedings based on W/Ls does not address conf imbalance.

 

No offense, but it seems like you are trying to recreate your past memories. Personally I find rivalries overrated. Who are our alleged rivals? Jazz? Dallas? Spurs? All three of those teams faded when their teams started to suck.

There was a time when clubs and players were loyal to each other. Over the past couple decades, this has become less and less, almost to the point of non existence. Now, not only do you have star players demanding trades when they dont get their way, role players are acting like prima donnas too. A team can go from great to medicore in mid season. This doesn't breed rivalries.

Atlanta has a 38-44 record last year, and that was in the Leastern Conference. Phoenix had a 48-34 record. That is 10 more wins. Teams should be judged on the wins in the columns, not their paper potential. Personally I believe if a team has a losing record, they have no business in the playoffs.

 

Give a trophy to all teams that make the playoffs. We are all winners.

 

That looks like a great match up for Houston. I am all in support of it.

 

This goes in cycle and the West has just been stronger for a while now. The East was the power conference in the 80's and no one wanted to switch formats then so why do it now. I could see reseeding in the conference after each round that would prevent teams tanking to avoid having to play certain teams.