I don't even see the need for conferences or divisions. The only reason I can see is that teams won't have to travel as far during the playoffs. I can't think of any other good reason.
This is what I was thinking when reading through this thread. It's unfair to the 9th seeded team because they should be in the playoffs and the weak division leader in the top 4 should be out of the playoffs.
If the season ended today, Rocket would still have home-court advantages. Hopefully, they end better then 5th "That fourth seed might be higher than the fifth in name only. Home-court advantage goes to the team with the best record, which isn't always the team with the higher seed."
Travel is a much bigger concern during the regular season. Divisions are stupid. I would use conferences for regular season, but still take 16 best teams regardless of conference for playoffs.
if the NBA really wanted to fix their game they would get rid of like 3-4 teams and put them in the d-league. make the d-league full time and have the top 3 teams go to the NBA and the worst 3 NBA teams get relegated to the D-League. it gets rid of tanking but allows a full-time developmental system at the same time giving small market teams a chance to make it to the big time.
Its ok we are on pace for 59-60 wins and that total would get u no less then the 2 seed in west for last 5 yrs, non lockout.
Only division leaders should be guaranteed a playoff spot, and the whole ranking in playoffs should ONLY be based on records. Yes, both conferences included, even it ends up with 3 Eastern teams and 13 Western teams. In reality, outside of Heat and Pacers, do you want to see any of the Eastern playoffs games?
it's as if all the input that educated fans contribute to a thread doesn't even matter to certain people, or they skimmed over it. The Clippers are ranked 4th because they are the Pacific Division leaders. their records are different. the head to head doesn't even come into the picture at all. the Rockets are percentage points better but the Clippers have the 4th seed, the Rockets would have 5th seed & HCA if the playoffs started today. don't know whether to smh or lol. why did the league not gift the Lakers the 4th seed last year according to your theory? they squeaked into the playoffs. this year's team is not a top contender 1-4 Western Conference playoff team
Division winners are guaranteed a top 4 spot, but lower seeds can will still have home court over higher seeds if they have a better record. The rule of operations is to first determine the division winners, applying standard tie breakers (head-to-head, division record, conference, record against playoff teams, etc.). Grant those three teams a top 4 spot and then pick the winningest non-playoff team and give them the other top 4 spot. Sort the top 4 teams by record applying tie breakers as needed. Additionally division winners automatically win tie breakers over non-division winners. You can thank the 2007-2008 Rockets for that provision. They were one game away from a three team tie for the top spot in the West that year. They would have lost the tie break to New Orleans and lost the division, but they would have won the three team tie break over the Hornets and Lakers and been the #1 seed despite losing the division. This now leads to situations like last year where the Clippers had home court over the Grizz even though the two teams had the same record and Memphis won the season series.
ya i believe in 07 playoffs Jazz were #4 seed and Rockets were #5 but had HC because of better record... of course we did lose at home in game 7... The most painful loss I have ever seen in person... The game 5 loss at home to the cardinals in 05 NLCS was pretty painful too but we still had games at hand
Which is kinda dumb -- what distinguishes a 5th seed from a 4th seed if it's not homecourt advantage? They should say a division leader is guaranteed top-5 seeding, since that's the de facto truth of the matter.
So Raptor, Knicks, Nets, Boston, or Sixers have a lock for 4th seed regardless. Whoever gets 5th seed has a chance to advance.
It protects eastern tv markets with crappy teams. The Atlantic division is a fantastic example, because it has Canada's biggest market, two teams in NYC, and two decent sized markets in Boston and Philly. Also, it allegedly promotes "rivalries".
Just like the European leagues in soccer. And guess which sport is the most popular in the world? Not basketball, I'll tell you that. So in theory a good idea BUT... This would take at least a decade if not 2, to get the D-League teams ready for this format. If the NBA suddenly employed this format next season, how would the former D-League teams compete without the financial stability that the existing NBA teams have? How could they sign NBA "premiere division" talent? The other issue is that the player pool for Basketball is not as deep as in Soccer to support multiple NBA divisions. Think about the amount of countries that produce elite world-class soccer talent, and do so equally? UK, Spain, Argentina, brazil, France, Italy, Germany, Holland, African countries, even Japan/Korea produce a few elite players here and there. And none of these countries are overwhelmingly more elite than the other. In basketball, the elite talent is 90% American, then you have very small pockets of elite players spread across the euro zone and a very small select of elite players from Latin America (really just Argentina and Brazil). The player pool is just not there. This is not a bad idea, but I suspect it is far to radical a change for American sports (not just bastketball). Maybe an alternative would be to turn the NBA into a true global league (since Americans like to call it the World Title, even though it isn't). Something like the football Euro league where the Euro teams play in the same league as American teams. The player pool in the Euro teams may help.
Houston is a half game ahead of LAC and will move a full game ahead of them after the Clippers lose to Cleveland tonight. they (Houston) would continue to occupy the 5th seed with HCA if playoffs started today...
