Three Changes to NBA Playoffs I'd Like to See
Three Changes to NBA Playoffs I'd Like to See
There's no denying that the NBA playoffs have gotten a little stale in recent memory. With a sub-par Eastern Conference, dominance by the Golden State Warriors, and more series sweeps than any other time in history, many are calling for the NBA to step in and change the way things are done with the playoffs. The voices at the top have listened and are working on proposals to change multiple aspects of the NBA playoffs in order to create a more enjoyable product come playoff time.
First reported by ESPN's Zach Lowe here the NBA has been looking into creating a play-in tournament that would allow for the ninth and tenth seeded teams to make the playoffs by winning games against the seventh and eighth seeded teams. The most compelling criticism of this proposal is that the play-in teams still have little chance of beating a vastly superior one or two seed. Sure, the 8 vs. 1 upset has happened in the past, but it has only happened five times and most recently in 2012 when Philadelphia upset a Derrick Rose-less Chicago team.
Below are the changes I believe would benefit the league and make the playoffs far more appealing both to the casual fan and the hardcore NBA junkie. I'm not the first to come up with these ideas by any means, but a combination of some or all of my proposed changes would create a better product for the NBA, which is really what it all comes down to.
Change #1: No More Conferences
This is an idea that has been circulating the league for years, but has recently gained more steam with a ravaged Eastern Conference and the emergence of the Houston Rockets as a potential foil to the Golden State Warriors. With this change, the playoffs would instead take the top 16 teams regardless of conference and seed them 1-16. Not only would this mean that teams would be rewarded for their higher level of play regardless of conference, it would also likely pit the two best teams of the season against each other in the Finals as opposed to the conference finals or earlier.
For example, it's pretty safe to say that Houston and Golden State are the two best teams in the league this season. Under the current format, the latest that these two could match up is the Western Conference Finals with the winner then taking on a lesser opponent from the East in the Finals. With the new format, Houston and Golden State would meet in the NBA Finals (barring an upset) on the biggest of stages. This would make for the best NBA product with the most eyes watching.
This change would also ensure that the top teams make the playoffs. This isn't as apparent this season as it has been in year's past, but let's go back to 2014 where a 48-win Phoenix team missed out on the playoffs due to the West being an absolute bloodbath. Had the Suns been in the East, they would have been tied for the third seed! Having one of the best twelve teams in the NBA miss out on the playoffs simply because of their geographical location is ridiculous.
The best argument against getting rid of conferences is the travel issue. The reformatted system looks great until we have a Miami vs Portland series and guys are gassed simply from traveling six hours every day. I understand this issue and I agree that it could potentially cause a problem and water down the product, I have a couple thoughts to throw out there. First off, New Orleans and Minnesota are already in the West and both are not THAT much further in terms of travel time from Portland. The second solution is my next change so we will get to that in a minute, but I still don't think that in this day and age of private planes and incredible scientific leaps that "travel" can simply be used as an excuse to not change the broken NBA playoffs system.
Change #2: The first round is best three of five
This actually used to be the way things went. The first round of the playoffs was best three of five. People didn't like it back then because it led to good teams getting beat by lesser opponents simply because the lower seed would win one of the first two games and then have home court. The home court advantage evaporated in these series quickly and it hurt the playoff product.
Here's why it would work now. First off, travel is far better these days so going back and forth in terms of home courts would be far easier. The sequence for the higher seed would be Home-Away-Home-Away-Home, which would maintain the home court advantage better than the 2-2-1 format from before. I'm sure there would be detractors of lower-seeded teams that would fight against not having a guaranteed two home games in the playoffs for revenue reasons, but if fans believe that the one home game the lower seed gets could be the final game of the season at home, you know fans will flock to see that game.
This also could potentially leave the door open for giving the top two seeds on each side of the bracket four home playoff games in the first round, or even all higher seeds would get this luxury in the first round. There's a lot that could be tweaked with this proposal and I think that allows for experimentation to find the right balance.
Change #3: A Play-In Tournament
I mentioned this at the top as a proposal that the NBA is actively looking into currently, but I want to take things a bit further. I want the final four teams to play in for the 16th seed in the playoffs. Basically, this would mean that teams 16-19 in the league would play a single-elimination tournament to determine the final team that makes the playoffs. Sure, they would be up against the top team in the league, but it would be an entertaining as hell couple games to determine that final playoff spot. We already see it in baseball and it works great, so why not give it a try in the NBA.
The biggest issue here is to find incentives for these teams to actually compete to make the playoffs in this tournament. This would likely mean tweaking the existing draft lottery numbers so that teams 17-19 would all have the same odds in the lottery so there wouldn't be any incentive to losing a game. The winner of the tournament would also receive some other compensation, whether that's in the form of a small increase in revenue share, a trade exception, or the first pick of the second round of the draft. There has to be something that incentivizes winning the tournament.
Hell, I wouldn't even be opposed to making it eight teams with potentially the top two teams making the playoffs. There's a ton that can be done with this proposal, but I think it really hinges on finding a way to keep the incentives of the organizations participating and the league aligned.
Those are the three changes that I would like to see implemented and honestly, none of them are too difficult or change too much to be considered in the near-term. While it sounds like the play-in tournament has gotten the most buzz from the league office, I think that reseeding the playoffs to be 1-16 is the one that would increase the value of the brand the most without hurting the teams or players involved. The NBA is an international brand so it seems uncharacteristic to have arbitrary geographical divides. I think that the East vs West is simply something that has been around so long that we forgot to evaluate the reason it is in place. We've already seen the East vs West format of the All-Star game fall by the wayside, so it's only natural that the playoffs follow the same path.
I would love to hear your thoughts!
I truly hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I did writing it. Please follow @brandonp for more NBA related content directly to your feed and as always, please upvote and resteem if you enjoyed it. If you haven't already, please subscribe to my weekly newsletter in the link on my profile page. Have a great one and keep Steeming!
i dont like the second change because there is no point, this is more interesting
Is it though? With the best of seven series the way it currently is, there is maybe one or two good series total in the first round. Usually the closest are the 3-6 matchups or the 4-5 matchups. The 1-8 and 2-7 are almost always sweeps and it's not uncommon to see more sweeps than not in the first round. How is that interesting?
I think these are somewhat good ideas. However, remember that the dominance of a conference goes in waves. There was a time that the Eastern conference was dominant. There have been many times that it was better to have East vs. West - see the LA vs. Boston Finals. No need to do anything drastic because currently the strength is in the West.
I don't think teams would even want to compete for that last playoff spot. It's not like the NCAA tourney where everyone has a chance at a big upset. You're probably not going to the upset the top team in a series. And there's no cinderella story in the NBA either.
I do agree with 5 game first round series. At least you have the chance for a 7 or 8 to upset a 1 or 2 seed there. And it doesn't drag out nearly as long.
You kind of contradict yourself on those last two paragraphs when you say that there's no cinderella story in the NBA, but then say that there could be 7-8 seed upsets.
I'm not saying that these are completely viable changes at face value, but I think the piece is a pretty compelling argument that the changes have the potential to do big things for the league.
No conferences in the postseason is a good idea but you'd have to change up the schedule. More teams would have to play each other an equal amount of times. Also, I think the East is going to re surge once the 76ers and Bucks get right.
The second change will not happen. No way NBA gives up the potential one-two games that come with a best of seven. I don't think they will add the play-in either because it decreases the value of those november games that your team should not be resting players for.
It wouldn't be hard to adjust the schedule at all. I'm also a supporter of them cutting a few games and making the season somewhere around 72-75 games long. It's easy to say that the East is going to resurge, but think about the good teams that could fall off quickly like Toronto and Cleveland. If LeBron goes West or the Raptors lose DeRozan to an injury, the East becomes just as bad as it's always been.
As for the second change, I'm not saying all of the playoffs need to be best of five, just the first round. Most of those series are garbage anyway.
How does a play-in devalue November games? Typically the only teams that are really resting players are established squads that have the luxury of knowing they'll be making the playoffs. You rarely see teams like Utah or the Clippers resting their players since those teams need every win they can get. Adding a play-in game doesn't change that.
Not true. teams always rest players. How many GTDs do we have in the NBA every single day.
Great post. I like the idea of playing with the playoff format as well. You're right on when talking about the two conference just being there and that's why we continue to think we need an East and West conference. The reason for this of course, was travel and timezone constraints from decades ago. In the present day those shouldn't be as much of an issue. Seeding the teams 1-16 does make sense though, especially in this season. However, one counterpoint to that is, had this format been in place, the Cavs upset of the Warriors 2yrs ago may not have happened - as the Spurs were far and away better than the Cavs in 2015-16 (by 10 games). We may not have had the LeBron and Kyrie drama in the Finals and the trilogy between the Cavs and Warriors. Not to mention, the East vs West does to an extent guarantee the Finals will be more spread out over the entire country. Meaning, if the Celtics and Warriors are in the Finals, you have the entire East Coast market, the West Coast market, etc. If the Warriors are playing the Clippers in the Finals, not many people from the rest of the country are going to care much about it.
I love the ideas you put forth, those are just a couple of counterpoints that I can see being brought up. But I like where you're going with this.
Who's to say that there wouldn't have been just as much drama with some other matchups? I don't think it's fair to say that we wouldn't have had something in the past with the new format since there's no way of knowing what we missed in the past because of the format we had put in place then.
As for the idea of markets being shut out, I don't think that's really a fair point to bring up. The NBA is so international and there are fans of teams everywhere. It's possible that we end up with small geographical market issues, but I don't think that would really hurt as much as people think.
Fair enough. And you are correct, the NBA is much more of a global product now than it used to be. I understand your counterpoint about the market issue, and you do make good points, but I do think its fair to bring up. I'm not saying that I agree with the sentiment - its something I've heard and seen debated, I just know its going to come up in debates. The former commissioner David Stern, made a point of maximizing market potential. Despite the game being more international, the big bucks are still at home in the United States. All of that being said, I'm still with you on this, I would like to see changes to NBA playoffs as well, just playing devil's advocate and presenting some of the counterpoints I've heard out there. Thanks again for the good info
I completely get it. It wasn't necessarily directed at you, but at people who use that argument as a reason to hold back the league from change.
I agree with a lot of your points here. The only ones I have problems with is the back and forth of the best of 5 series. Travel sucks for athletes, and combining fewer games (less revenue) and more travel expenses for teams isn't likely to happen. Also I would love the play-ins, but making it too big would cause too long of a dely between regular season and real playoffs for the teams already in.
Travel these days really isn't that bad. Plus with it only being five games, it's actually the same number of travel days as there currently are in a seven game series so that doesn't really seem to be a compelling argument to me.
As for the play-in tournament. It would at most take 2-3 days and would give the teams that made the playoffs a bit of a rest to be more fresh for the first round. I don't think that's a bad thing at all. There's definitely a way to schedule things so that it's not a big burden.
It seems that NBA commissioner is finally starting to look at some alternatives to the current playoffs systems, whether or not they get off the ground is another thing. In regards to the last 4 teams playing off for the 16th seed this will dilute the importance of the regular season in some ways. All good points though. Cheers
Is it any different than the importance of the regular season right now? It's simply moving down the position at which a team wants to compete for. It doesn't change much in terms of dilution of the regular season.
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.
I agree. I can't imagine too many situations in which I wouldn't watch those play-in games. There would be a ton of excitement and it would for sure bring in huge ratings.
You got a 1.68% upvote from @postpromoter courtesy of @brandonp!
Want to promote your posts too? Check out the Steem Bot Tracker website for more info. If you would like to support the development of @postpromoter and the bot tracker please vote for @yabapmatt for witness!
This post has received a 1.83 % upvote from @boomerang.
Thank you so much for using our service!
Help us grow by delegating to us! 100sp, 500SP, 1000SP, ANY SPYou just received 79.21% upvote from @onlyprofitbot courtesy of @brandonp!