I was gonna write about this the other day.... Right now its around the 70 game mark. Do NBA fans REALLY want the regular season TO END NOW? Or have ended 2 months ago? Fans always TALK big about this. But I know lots of people are deep down looking forward to the next extra few games.
I think they should have 14 seeds. And no conferences. Simply think the best records should make it regardless of conference affiliation. So what if its an imbalanced shedule, that hasnt mattered much in football. Sometimes you get some tough out-of-conference games in a season, sometimes you don't 16 teams is already too much, its a MAJORITY of the teams in the league nothing special about that. Or instead of allowing in one crappy team too many, keep the conferences and have 7 teams per conference. (If it was just 7 teams per conference, it'd possibly knock the Lakers OUT the playoffs :grin With less games, You just know it would be increased costs to the game tickets, concessions and league pass to compensate. They've been on 82 games for so long, hard to see them messing that up. NBA would dial it back to 75 at the most.
I'm looking forward to the upcoming games, not because there games 70 and 71 (or whatever) but because the regular season is ending. I'd be as excited if the regular season ended in February. There's way too many meaningless games, because there's too many games and too many teams. Who wants to watch a Bobcats v. Raptors game? Unless I can't find anything else to do, I'm not even watching that game, let alone going to it.
well reducing the number of games doesn't mean you just get rid of bad games. It means you get rid of good games too.
That whole thinking (while true this year) doesn't represent a typical season. The real difference between conferences lately has been the lower table / final seeds where you'd likely have an East team take that 16th seed every year (and possibly 14-15 seeds as well).
This would work fine. It already works fine in baseball. But you'd almost certainly have to switch to a 2-3-2 format. The problem would be with the reseeding. It would be a logistics nightmare working out accommodations and the venues.
I agree, but would add: 1. eliminate eastern and western conferences as a separation of teams. Keep the divisions to focus more regional play (e.g. Houston vs. San Antonio and Dallas.) 2. reduce regular season to 70 games (every other team twice, plus two extra games for teams in your division.) Starting season around Xmas would be awesome, as many have mentioned. 3. reduce first two rounds of the playoffs to five-game series. All games would become more intense and therefore fun. I know the league would never do 2 & 3, due to loss of revenue.
See now, I don't know if the league would necessary lose revenue. Sure, there'd be less games for fans to go to, but IMO those steps would increase per game ticket sales to even it out, and there'd be more interest in the NBA in general.
Owners wouldn't consider fewer games. They just wouldn't. You could only hope to dial it back by 2-4 games at most, and that's if you put games back in the kitty via the postseason. What I would like, not claiming it to be a realistic scenario: Throw out conferences. They're archaic and mean zilch. By doing so, you can make divisions and division rivalries matter like they should. -Each team plays the other 4 in their division 4 times. -Each team plays their 25 non-division opponents twice. -Play 14 of the non-division opponents a third time (rotational basis) to fill out an 80 game regular season.* -The worst two teams in the league are excluded from the playoffs as well as the lottery - automatically slotted with the 4th and 5th picks in the draft. There is literally no reason anyone in their right mind would tank going forward. Cinderella Lightning Round -The lower 12 seeds (#17-#28) have a single elimination round, possibly over two days (TV purposes). Winners are re-seeded. -A second single elimination round is held for the remaining lower 12 seeds (#11-#22), possibly over two days (TV purposes). Winners are re-seeded. Field of 16 -The six division winners are seeded #1-6, remaining teams as normal. -First round best of 5 -Remaining rounds best of 7 Lottery Equal Weight Lottery for the first pick among seeds #17-28 (8.3% chance) Equal Weight Lottery for the 2nd pick among seeds #11-28 (excludes top pick winner, 5.9% chance) Equal Weight Lottery for the 3rd pick among all playoff teams (excludes top two pick winners, 3.8% chance) *I'd love to leave it at 66 games, but the owners simply are not going to light fire to 20% of their current revenue...and the league is already starting to out-price itself the way the NHL did. This isn't the NFL, they don't have that level of pull. They are much closer to MLB in their natural price structure. The travel business is a bunch of bull.
There should be fewer teams in the playoffs. No 7th or 8th seed team has ever won a championship. It should be 6 teams per conference, like in the NFL.
March Madness >>>>>> NBA playoffs, and that's 64+ teams going at it. Right now, still in March, you've got 12 teams that have shut it down for the year...and half of them gave up a month ago. It's awful for the fans, and encourages tanking. Pseudo-expand the field to 28, and you'll have a serious dog fight at the bottom because no one wants to be one of the two laughingstock losers that missed the postseason AND can't get better than the #4 pick. You'd also have a dogfight as middle-pack teams try to be certain they won't face a single elimination match up. This would keep teams red hot competitive throughout the season, making the regular season a lot better. And I'd personally be more entertained watching 18 teams sweat out single elimination games than the current 3 week long never ending first round of boredom.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p>Prefer how it is-more variance which is good 4the league MT @<a href="https://twitter.com/jebgreenberg">jebgreenberg</a> whats your thoughts on seeding in playoffs w/no conf affiliation?</p>— Daryl Morey (@dmorey) <a href="https://twitter.com/dmorey/status/316656630479585280">March 26, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> God has spoken
That is a beautiful bracket for the Rockets. OKC is the biggest threat, and most of the teams that I wouldn't want to face are on the other side (excluding OKC)
Really lazy seeding by Grantland. They don't even take into account West vs. East records. How is it fair that SA plays MIN as a 16th seed? Only 4 teams in the East have a winning record against the West. In comparison, 12 teams in the West have winning records against the East. Seeding should be something like top 16 teams based on winning percentage, then matchups determined by highest vs. lowest winning percentage with some algorithm to include the East/West records.
