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.
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?
QConners
Roar Pro
Althoug it really isn't completely fair, I'm a fan of keeping things the way they are. Tradition is something that is often lost in many sports but it's been great to see in the NBA over so many years. I would like them to keep it the same. What I do want them to change though, is the length of the season. It doesn't need to take 82 games to prove who the best team is. Teams should still verse each team in their division 4 times and conference 3 times, but should then only verse teams from the other conference once rather than twice.
Corey Kennedy
Roar Rookie
you are right, the big issue is definitely travel. They should keep the conferences when it comes to regular season but as you say should be a top 16 come playoff time.
Clark
Guest
I really wish they would just do away with the conferences in terms of playoff seedings. I'm not sure if they still want to keep it in terms of historical value. But come playoff time they should just have the top 16 playing eachother. The big problem I think is the amount of travel, i think the scheduling would need a bit of an overhaul if a top 16 team playoffs was the path to go down for the NBA