How the NBA should restructure playoffs

The NBA most definitely needs to restructure their playoff format, but how should they go about it?

Two days ago NBA commissioner Adam Silver told us that he was open to reconsidering the way the association selects playoff teams.

Over the last decade plus, the conversation regarding good teams in the West being left out in favor of worse teams in the East has been a very real one. The fact that the Western Conference is much, much better than the East is overwhelming.

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Yet again, during this 2014-15 season, there are current playoff spots in the East that are less than worthy. In fact, two of them are sub .500 teams – the 7th seeded Charlotte Hornets who are 22-28 and both the Brooklyn Nets and Miami Heat who share the 8th seed with a poultry 21-29 record.

In the West we have two teams that are .500 or better than are on the outside looking in. The 9th ranked New Orleans Pelicans who sport a 27-24 record and the finally whole Oklahoma City Thunder who are .500 on the button.

Most of the conversation regarding reformatting the playoffs surrounds taking the top 16 teams from the entire league, instead of the top eight from each conference. The idea that Silver was open to is one that would see the six division winners automatically qualify for the playoffs and the final 10 teams battle out in an inter-conference fashion.

In this scenario, Charlotte and Miami/Brooklyn would be out while New Orleans and Oklahoma City would get in.

In everybody’s eyes this would assure that the better teams make the playoffs. There’s one major thing the majority is overlooking here, and it’s not about making sure that the top 16 teams get in.

It’s about how to improve the league as a whole.

As we watch the NBA today, what are we missing? We have plenty of superstars. LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis and so much more carry the torch for a star-rich league.

We have the teams and dynasties, as the Miami Heat proved with the Big-Three during their four-year run and Tim Duncan’s San Antonio Spurs continue to prove time and again.

The league also has the hottest summers of any professional sports leagues. Offseason player movement speculation is bigger news than the actual games are. “The Decision” and “The Decision 2.0” is evidence of this notion.

"What the association is sorely missing these days is rivalries."

What commissioner David Stern had in his hay-day as the league boss was not only the advent of the mega-star, he had the mega-star hating all other mega-stars. Rivalries were in our face int he 1980’s and 90’s.

Whether it was Larry Bird and Magic Johnson; or Michael Jordan and the Bad Boys; or Jordan and the New York Knicks; or Spike Lee and Reggie Miller; the NBA had unbelievable drama within those rivalries that upped the ante and made competition feel cut-throat.

Watching Larry Bird fight Kareem Abdul-Jabbar made us all feel that NBA players laid it all completely on the line.

Nowadays, stars are among a fraternity of friends that play patty-cake during the game. Not only are they friends off the court (which is real and understandable), but they laugh with one another on the court.

Let’s make one thing clear: I’m not condoning fighting on the court, but I’m certainly not in favor for the way today’s superstars don’t go after one another like they used to.

There needs to be a little more fire, competitiveness and dramatic action in this league. One way to bring this back is to create rivalries.

Sticking with a more balanced schedule and seeding the playoffs between the two conferences is not how you promote rivalries. Instead, Silver should take a page out of the NHL’s book and follow their restructure that went live last season.

Both the NHL and NBA sit with 30 teams each. Both had the same format which saw 15 teams in each conference and six divisions in total. Both playoffs were identical which saw three-division winners and the following five best records make the tournament in each conference.

The NHL reformatted and went to a league which saw only four-divisions. The change carried over to the playoffs too where the first two rounds of the playoffs would feature “in division” rivalries only (aside from minor interference from a Wild Card).

The NBA should follow suit and go to more unbalanced schedule that would promote more geographical rivalries. Having teams play each other more and forcing them to see each other more than they want to would create an unsettling effect.

Think about a reason why there was more animosity 30 years ago – there were less teams and guys got absolutely sick of one another. Now, because there are so many teams, the schedule is so spread out and playoff matchups become much more random – and would get worse if you decide to inter-mingle the conferences when seeding for the playoffs – that teams see new faces way too often.

Here’s the official proposal to help create more rivalries in the NBA.

Here’s how it would work, exactly like the NHL system:

2 Conferences
4 Divisions in Total
Top 3 teams from each division make the playoffs
Top 2 teams in each conference not in the top 3 in their division become the Wild Cards
First 2 rounds are only “in-division” matchups, along with a Wild Card that could come from the other division in conference

Eastern Conference

Atlantic Division
New York Knicks
Brooklyn Nets
Boston Celtics
Philadelphia 76ers
Miami Heat
Orlando Magic
Washington Wizards
Charlotte Bobcats

Central Division
Chicago Bulls
Detroit Pistons
Cleveland Cavs
Milwaukee Bucks
Indiana Pacers
Toronto Raptors
Atlanta Hawks

Western Conference

Mid-West Division
Oklahoma City Thunder
Minnesota Timberwolves
San Antonio Spurs
Houston Rockets
Dallas Mavericks
New Orleans Pelicans
Memphis Grizzlies

Pacific Division
Los Angeles Lakers
Los Angeles Clippers
Golden State Warriors
Sacramento Kings
Phoenix Suns
Portland Trail Blazers
Utah Jazz
Denver Nuggets

Forcing more natural rivals to play each other early in the playoffs is the way to create more rivalries.

The regular season schedule can be debatable. You can either stick with playing non-conference opponents twice, or change it to once per season and increase the times you play divisional opponents. The negative to changing non-conference opponents to once is that every city won’t have the opportunity to welcome in superstars from the other conference once a year, which would be a big downside for a league that thrives on their star status.

Regardless of the regular season schedule, the first two rounds of the playoffs is where the animosity and intensity would be ratcheted up. It assures that geographical rivalries constantly see each other in the playoffs year after year, providing a build up in hatred during the most critical and pressure packed games.

If the playoffs started today, here’s how the first round would look with this format:

East

Atlantic Bracket

Wizards (#1 Atlantic) vs Bucks (#2 Wild Card)
Hornets (#2 Atlantic) vs Heat (#3 Atlantic)

Central Bracket

Hawks (#1 Central) vs Cavs (#1 Wild Card)
Raptors (#2 Central) vs Bulls (#3 Central)

West

Mid-West Bracket

Grizzlies (#1 Mid-West) vs Spurs (#1 Wild Card)
Rockets (#2 Mid-West) vs Mavericks (#3 Mid-West)

Pacific Bracket

Warriors (#1 Pacific) vs Suns (#2 Wild Card)
Trail Blazers (#2 Pacific) vs Clippers (#3 Pacific)

Now while the eight teams in each conference don’t change at all with this structure as is right now, it doesn’t mean it would always be like this. There would be some years where one division is better than the other. It just makes those divisional games that much more important.

So, each bracket would have it’s own playoff that lasts two rounds, and once they’re done, the teams that make it through would represent the final four teams.

Going to four divisions is the only way to assure that geographical rivalries occur each and every season. Making divisional games more important in regards to playoff races will most definitely heat things up.

Let’s also not forget that if the regular season schedule is more unbalanced, meaning teams play in-division more, then records across the league would naturally be more balanced and we wouldn’t be able to see one conference trump the other in perceived superiority.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver is a bright man and has gotten off to a phenomenal start as the head man for the league. I cannot believe I am saying this, but Silver needs to take a page out of Gary Bettman’s playbook and get rivalries started in the league again.

Who would not sign up for those matchups listed above?

An all-Texas matchup between the Rockets and Mavs; the best team in the league right now in the Hawks going up against LeBron James; and once teams like the Knicks, Lakers and Pistons get back up to speed, they’ll bring so much more to the table geographically.

Let’s maintain the East vs West NBA Finals and get back to rivalry basics.

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The NBA most definitely needs to restructure their playoff format, but how should they go about it?

Eastern Conference

Western Conference

East

West

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