I liked one of the final points you made in your conclusion about the NBA being unnecessarily divided geographically, I agree that league format is outdated and because the game has drastically expanded on an international scale it makes a lot of sense to eliminate conferences. The top 16 team playoff race would be fun to watch for sure, the travel as you mentioned could show some challenge to this but overall I think it could work. Also a play-in tourney would bring a little march madness college ball feel to the game and that allows ranks pretty high up on the excitement meter each year so I like your suggestions but we'll see with time.