The gulf between the conferences is getting wider and wider each season. The Eastern conference has 3 teams that would be in the playoffs if they started today, despite having sub-.500 records. What I would propose is a playoff structure where the top 6 teams in each conference take their spots with the last two spots in each conference reserved as wild cards. The 4 teams with the best records outside of the teams already in the playoffs would take the final 4 spots, regardless of conference. What do you think?
I'm all for putting the best teams in the playoffs. What they should do is let the top 16 teams into the playoffs. Let the records decide who is the conference champ. If the playoffs started today it would look like this: 1) Sacramento 2) Indiana 3) Minnesota 4) San Antonio 5) Lakers 6) Dallas 7) NJ 8) Memphis 9) Detroit 10) Houston 11) Denver 12) New Orleans 13) Milwaukee 14) Portland 15) Utah 16) Seattle Now how interesting would that be?
Mostly just to keep the teams on the far East and far West from having to fly all the way across the country more than 2 times a year.
and reenact the civil war with all the african american players on the North side and the Utah jazz on the south
One good thing about having most of the good teams in the West is that you can pretty much concentrate on the Western playoffs and ignore the East. And you find great matchups all the way from the first round. The Western conference finals would be the real finals. I think last year's playoffs was like that. This year's will be the same. Looking forward to it.
'til the day I day, I'll continue to preach an end to EAST vs WEST until the East catches up. Just get the top 16 teams in the league record-wise, pair them up(1v16, 2v15, etc.), and play it out. Of course, that means an end to the traditional method of teams playing more games against those in their conference.
. . . .to the EAST COASTERS and folx thought the ratings were low this year could you imagine a Rockets Spurs finals Who outside of Texas would watch? Rocket River or worse . . .a Dallas Spurs Finals
Andy... It's an idea, but I think it negates the value of conferences and E-W slanted schedules. Besides, these things ( dominance of one conference) are cyclical, and it hasn't really been that bad for that long...No sport has been as one sided as the NFL was for about 15 years, with the NFC winning every Super Bowl, usually by a lot more than the NFC game was decided. But, eventually, it corrected itself. I assume that the same thing will happen here.
I disagree. It's unfair to seed 5-8 teams. The top 4 teams have been given an advantage for one more home game awarding their performance in regular game which's already enough for them. You have to keep balance the advantages of that against disadvantages, otherwise 1st/2nd round playoffs would become pointless!
Interesting factoid: The Pacers are 14-6 (0.700) against the Western Conference. That's a better winning percentage than any other team in the NBA, even including the best teams in the west playing games within their conference.
Are you sure about that? The rockets are 21-6 vs the East this year (.777) and you see where the Rockets stand up vs the West 13-19 (.406)
Nobody has a better winning percentage against the Western Conference than the Pacers (14-6, 0.700). Next best is Sacramento, 24-13 against the West, 0.649.
well you're also comparing 20 games vs 37 games. It's easier to have a better record against the west when you dont have to play each of them 4 times a year.
It's just a really long dry spell since the East has had a dominant team with a bonafide superstar i.e. MJ and the Bulls or Isiah Thomas and the Badboys. Sooner or later somebody from the east will emerge as a dominant team looks like Pacers right now and the teams that are at the bottom of the east will get better. Just look at the west, I can remember Dallas being at the bottom just 3-4 years ago. Vancouver AKA Memphis Grizzlies always dwelled at the bottom along with the Denver Nuggets. My point is sooner or later things will balance out and the teams in the east will be better overall.
i think a north south conference would be best or have a mix like the nfl has with the AFC/NFC where one team in the state could be like in the NFC (ie see 49ers) while the other is in the AFC (ie oakland) either way it will balance the playoff seedings better. a 1vs16 would be bad because the higher matchup seedings, (1vs16,2vs15,3vs14,4vs13) would be a total breeze for the higher ranked teams, at least the 1vs8 in both conferences will be competitive even though the 1vs8 in the east will suck compared to the west 1vs8 but at least its competitive. a 1vs16 will sort of be like the ncaa tourney cept that in a 7-game series the 16th seeded team will need more than a miracle to win the game but hopefully a north vs south will be implemented that should be better with teams like sacto,minn,indiana,nj,detroit in the north will the lakers,spurs,mavs,rockets,grizz,hornets would be in the south which seems to be more balanced i think something will happen in the next two years as the hornets move to the west while the east gets a new franchise talk about shifting even more power to the west. (it'll also be interesting to see how the hornets will do in the west considering the east heavy schedule they have for being in the east this year, as everyone keeps saying the hornets would be like a 500 or sub 500 in the west)
