The Commissioner of the NBA, Adam Silver, is not afraid of change. He wants to reform the way the playoffs are seeded. Recently Silver said “Ultimately, we want to see your best teams in the playoffs.” The reason for the change is that every year the West from seeds one to eight have been far superior then the East.
West playoff teams have to win 50 plus games to participate in the playoffs. The top three teams in the East the win 50 games or more. The four, five, and six seeds are a few games above .500. The last two seeds have a record worse than .500. That usually makes for an easy matchup for the top three seeds. So far this year the ten of the best sixteen teams come from the West.
Adam Silver wants to change the playoff seeding. Instead of the best eight teams in both conferences, he would have six divisions. The winner of the divisions would receive an automatic berth to the playoffs. The other ten teams would be the best records no matter what conference they are in. They would seed these teams for the playoff matchups. He will talk to the competition committee to propose this possible revision to the playoffs.
Why have divisions or conferences then? Division games help determine who will be in the playoffs. The conferences assist in seeding the best eight teams in both conferences. They might as well just have the best 16 teams according to win and losses and not have divisions. That would help him get the best teams in the playoffs. Silver wouldn’t have to worry about the record a team has.
The NBA playoffs are great the way they are. Sure the East isn’t as good as the West. At least they have the best eight teams from both conferences in the playoffs. This has work for years. Why fix it if it isn’t broken?
If the competition committee passes this, it would have to go to the league owners. The league owners would have the final. If it league owners vote yes to this proposed change, we would see a new playoff format.
What should the NBA do regarding playoff seeding
I doubt that the owners will change anything in the playoff plans for this year. Maybe next but who knows?
I like it the way it is. At least silver is willing to have change.