As of today this is how the playoffs would look if conferences were eliminated, I for one find some of these match ups way more interesting then what we would see in the current format (especially in the East) 1- Indiana 16- Minnesota 8- Golden State 9- Phoenix 4- San Antonio 13- Chicago 5- Houston 12- Toronto 3- Miami 14- Washington 6- Portland 11- Memphis 7- LA Clippers 10- Dallas 2- Oklahoma City 15- Brooklyn How would you see this shaking out? I definitely think Memphis could pull the first round upset. Rockets with a nice match up in round 1, but 5 vs 12 always proves tricky in the NCAA tourney.
MIN @ IND (IND in 4) PHX @ GSW (GS in 7) CHI @ SAS (SAS in 5) TOR @ HOU (HOU in 5) WAS @ MIA (MIA in 4) MEM @ POR (POR in 6) DAL @ LAC (LAC in 5) BKN @ OKC (OKC in 4) GSW @ IND (IND in 5) HOU @ SA (HOU in 6) :grin: POR @ MIA (MIA in 6) LAC @ OKC (LAC in 7) HOU @ IND (HOU in 7) LAC @ MIA (MIA in 7) HOU @ MIA (HOU in 6) OK, so I'm a homer.
if you eliminated conferences the schedule would be balanced which means good east teams would become bad teams and bad west teams would become good teams.
I've been thinking about this lately too with all the horrendous teams in the East. I think this would definitely make the playoffs a lot more interesting!
Yep. This is a useless thought exercise, because those seedings would look much different without conferences.
it would def make it more fair. a team in the west could have to go through each clippers, thunder, spurs to get to the finals...where as a team in the east would only have to go through bobcats, nets, pacers/heat.
Wow, I'd want to see every matchup. Current format helped Miami Heat a lot, playing weaker opponents has a huge impact record/health wise. It may not seem like a lot, but in the highest level competition, win/loss is determined by tiny thing margin(0.01 second will make you winner or loser in 100m race, and a couple kg would decide championship in weightlifting...). I think playing weaker teams 4 times instead of twice actually means there're 1/3 of games(about 27 games) would be easy instead of hard, and in turn they would likely to go 17-10 instead of 20-7 in those games. That's not to account for more likely injuries/fatigure impact. In reality it could mean 5 more losses for the top eastern teams if they were to play in west.
This would be sweet. Love the chance to see division rivals go against each other in a Finals match. Ultimate Championship game.
I do like those matchups, but in a general sense it makes no sense to try and level the playoff brackets without also equalizing the regular season schedules. And in my opinion, there is still a travel-related need to keep games geographically tight when possible. If you want to have a no-conference schedule, you have to shorten the NBA season to allow a bit more travel time. I think it comes down to that. Drop to 75 games, completely outlaw back-to-backs (or at least four-in-fives), and only THEN does it make sense for the Clippers to play the Knicks and Lakers the same amount of times.
Yes, I agree. This should be the playoff format. They always said the east will get better. Well, it's been over 13 years, and the east is at an all time low! There's really no hope in the horizon.
And don't think that Miami took this into consideration when pitching the idea to Bosh and Lebron. By huddling up in Miami they basically guaranteed themselves and Eastern Conference Finals appearance every year, even if one of the big three was injured.
Wouldn't matter, we'd still make the semi's at the very least. We're just too good... with Lin and everything.
Strangely, I think two of the Western leaders in OKC and Clippers get the worst end of this change. They'd have to face each other and then beat Miami just to get to the finals. Lots of cool matchups though indeed.
Would certainly be a more competitive playoff. Ensures the best teams in the league get to the postseason.
They should do away with conferences outside of all star teams and players of the month type awards. But I think if the do this then they need to make the teams play each other more equally i.e. make some interconference series longer and some of the 4 game series to 3. You should only play your division 4 times a season. This would make a way more interesting playoffs than just watching the ECF and most of the west playoffs.
