NBA’s Sweet Sixteen: How the NBA Playoffs would look under the Top 16 system

The NBA Playoffs may be undergoing an overhaul, switching to a system that brings in the top 16 teams in the league rather than the top eight from each conference. Why can’t they just do it this year?

It is amazing that no one has christened NBA Commissioner Adam Silver with the nickname “The Piggy Bank” yet. After all, he is a man of change. Don’t believe me? Just ask Donald Sterling.

The first year of Silver’s tenure has been marked with decisive action and open discussions about how to improve the league. The NBA Playoff system has been his latest target.

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During the Golden State Warriors-Dallas Mavericks television broadcast on February 4, The Piggy Bank fielded fan questions that were posted Facebook. One of the questions that was asked was if the NBA Playoff system needed to change to include the top 16 teams in the NBA instead of the current system which includes the top eight teams from both the Eastern and Western Conferences.

Commission Silver did not sidestep the question. Instead he answered in a manner that has been fitting throughout his first year of being the most powerful man in the NBA: directly.

“Ultimately we want to see your best teams in the playoffs. And there is an unbalance and a certain unfairness. There is a proposal…where the division winners would all automatically go into the playoffs and then you’d seed the next 10 best teams. I think that’s the kind of proposal we need to look at. There are travel issues of course, but in this day and age every team of course has their own plane, travels charter. I don’t think the discussion should end there. And as I’ve said, my first year I was studying a lot of these issues and year 2 is time to take action. It’s something I’m going to look at closely with the competition committee. I do think it’s an area where we need to make a change.”

The discussed proposal, if there was ever going to be an official one, makes so much sense on so many levels. Mainly, the potential for a guarantee that the best teams in the NBA are going to participate in basketball that actually matters is huge.

As it stands now, the Eastern Conference has two teams that are below .500 in position to make the playoffs, the Miami Heat and the Charlotte Hornets. In the other half of the NBA, the New Orleans Pelicans and Phoenix Suns hold better records, but are on pace to miss the playoffs.

Obviously, the way the NBA Playoffs are set up right now, the best teams will not be playing for the NBA Championship; a notion that is illogical and unfair to the teams that performed the best during the season. Is it the Pelicans or Suns fault that they play in the gauntlet that is the Western Conference? No, and they should not suffer for it while struggling teams like the Heat and Hornets get the opportunity to compete in the postseason.

So why wait until two or three years down the line to see what the playoff structure looks like? The future is now!

*Record accurate as of March 2, 2014, 12:00 am est

The Piggy Bank stated the proposal he viewed guaranteed playoff spots for the six division winners and the top 10 teams after that, suggesting that the division winners would get higher seeds. For the purposes of this system, division winners will not be getting special treatment.

The reason there is even a discussion about a new playoff system is to reward the best teams with a berth into the NBA playoffs. The seeding should reflect that premise solely on the teams’ winning percentage.

If there is a tie in the winning percentage, the higher seed should go to the winner of the head-to-head matchup. If there is a tie in that, then it should go to conference record, and then division record if that is tied up (i.e. the Pelicans and Bucks). The point is playoff seeds should be given to the teams that have earned them, not given to them if they played in a soft division.

Back to the actual set up.

Beautiful, isn’t it? The playoff rounds will essentially be the same (four rounds of seven-game series’) to determine who is the best team in the NBA between the proven best franchises in the league.

As Commissioner Silver stated, one of the biggest criticisms of this new system is the amount of travel needed by some teams in order to complete their respective series’. As it stands right now, the Clippers-Cavs and Trail Blazers-Wizards series will have both teams scrambling to fill their individual planes with pretzel bags that only have five pretzels in them and ginger ale.

However, all teams now have their own team planes, so players do not need to wait at check-in counters and baggage claims. Also, the NBA can schedule games spaced further apart to take into account any sort of lengthy travel.

Another issue that opponents of the proposal have is that the new playoff system would not foster regional rivalries. While those rivalries may not happen with the same frequency that they have had in the past, the current bracket shows a series between in state rivals Dallas and San Antonio right away.

Also, with James Harden flourishing with the Rockets after his time with the Thunder, the Houston-Oklahoma City rivalry is in full force in the first round as well. Regional rivalries, as well as new ones being created by the intense atmosphere of playoff basketball, will be alive and well under the new system.

More important than any issue that may come up is that fans finally have a system that guarantees that the best teams in the league compete against one another in the NBA Playoffs; a notion that has Commissioner Silver rubbing his hands together to try to make it happen.

The owners may oppose this proposed change to the NBA, and we very well may not receive the gift of a legitimate playoff system. However, with Adam “Piggy Bank” Silver (IT’S GOING TO BE A THING) can continue his trend of instant impact on the league early, we may be graced with this amazing system sooner rather than later.

Next: Will Milwaukee Bucks move for Michael Carter-Williams pay off?

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