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NBA playoffs must be reformatted

Russell Westbrook, the former MVP. (Wikipedia Commons)
Roar Rookie
21st April, 2015
3

With the NBA playoffs starting last weekend, many basketball fans have been engaged in debate surrounding the format of the end of season event.

The NBA should move to a top 16 system when it comes to the playoffs. They need to abolish the use of conferences, making it a fairer situation for all teams.

The NBA recently announced that there would be no changes anytime soon to the playoff format, with many owners citing tradition as a main factor in sticking with the current system.

While tradition is important, it is more important to reward teams that outperform others from other conferences that undeservedly miss out on the playoffs as a result of being in a stronger conference.

The Western conference has for a long time now been the far superior conference when it comes to overall record and gameplay. This season nine teams from the West finished with a record over .500, while the East only have five plus the Bucks who finished at exactly .500.

This season it was the Oklahoma City Thunder who were the team that would be the most frustrated when it comes to the playoff format. The Thunder’s 45-37 record would have been good enough for the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference but instead they are sitting at home watching teams like Boston and Brooklyn battle it out in what has been dubbed the “Leasten Conference”.

The year before it was the upstart Phoenix Suns that missed out on a playoff spot, despite winning an impressive 48 games – while the Atlanta Hawks made it with only 38 wins, showing further evidence at the discrepancy between conferences.

The NBA will surely be looking to showcase their best teams when it comes to the playoffs and that is not happening when the teams are below average and not worthy of playoff basketball.

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While there would be a lot more travel if it was to just be a top 16 format, it will cause headaches when it comes to scheduling as you would need more time between games to get to from each sides of the country.

A solution for this, so the season doesn’t drag further on into the American summer, would be to shorten the preseason as everyone already thinks it drags on too long and has no real meaning.

Would you rather some scrappy and poor games in the early season or would you rather have more meaningful and much higher standard games that come with a top 16 playoff format?

Many feel it is a no brainer that you should reward teams for their records not just because they are lucky enough to be in a weaker conference.

This would be the first round match-ups this season if it was to be a top 16 format:
Warriors-Celtics
Hawks-Bucks
Rockets-Pelicans
Clippers-Thunder
Grizzles-Wiz
Spurs-Raptors
Cavs-Mavs
Blazers-Bulls

There are some great match-ups there and it would only get better as we went further into the playoffs.

This format would guarantee that only the best are on display at the end of the season. What would you rather?

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