For a few years now the NBA has been tilted in terms of Playoff competition. The Eastern Conference has been significantly weaker compared to the Western Conference. You can see this in terms of records and by just analysing the quality of play.
Recently. People have blamed the Playoff system for giving Eastern Conference teams chances when there are much more deserving teams in the Western Conference. And that’s true. There have been many teams in the West that have missed out simply because they’re in the West. But according to ProBasketballTalk, commissioner Adam Silver might be leaning towards a solution.
…the most interesting answer was his to the question of if the NBA should change its playoff system and, rather than take the top eight in each conference, take the Top 16 teams and seed them regardless of conference. Here was his response.
“Ultimately we want to see your best teams in the playoffs. And there is an unbalance and a certain unfairness. There is a proposal (from one of the broadcasters)… where the division winners would all automatically go into the playoffs and then you’d seed the next 10 best teams. I think that’s the kind of proposal we need to look at. There are travel issues of course, but in this day in age every team of course has their own plane, travels charter. I don’t think the discussion should end there. And as I’ve said, my first year I was studying a lot of these issues and year 2 is time to take action. It’s something I’m going to look at closely with the competition committee. I do think it’s an area where we need to make a change.”
The owners in the East might well oppose this.
If you used that formula this season there would be two changes: Charlotte and Miami would be out, replaced by New Orleans and Oklahoma City. Meaning the better, more deserving teams would get in. As it should be.
Sounds like a great idea right? Why haven’t we talked about this before? Well there are some things to account for.
First is travel. Do you think a Los Angeles Clippers/Cleveland Cavaliers matchup will be of high quality? Imagine the frequent flyer miles the two teams will be racking up? Sure the matchups will be tastier than a rump steak with peppercorn sauce but with all those possible miles could possibly dampen down the quality of the series.
If only life was NBA2K.
The other problem is the fact that Eastern Conference owners would never accept this. Like. Never. You think Micky Arison would jump at this?
