Proposed Changes to the NBA Playoff Structure

The NBA has a problem, one conference tends to be a lot better than the other conference, that's been the case for the past 2 decades, though which conference was ascendent, flipped sometime around Jordan's retirement.

Right now, you have two elite teams in the East (Boston, Detroit), two good teams with an intriguing player (Cleveland, Orlando), and the rest of the teams that don't much matter. It's inconceivable that other than those four will get to the 2nd round, barring a wave of injuries hitting the top teams.

In the West it's a completely different picture. There is no elite unbeatable team. On any night, any one of 10 teams is capable of beating any of the other top 10 teams (on their home floor, at least) in that conference. Only 8 of those teams will make the playoffs this year, and that's a shame. Of the eight teams currently above the cut for a playoff spot, only four losses separate 1st from 8th. In the East, 25 losses separate 1st from 8th.

Some have already suggested just seeding the top 16 teams, without regard to conference, and let them in the playoffs. I think that'd make this year's playoffs a lot better, and would have lead to more intriguing playoff match ups (especially in the 2nd round) than what you probably will have this year (as well as in the past 5 years).

Using Hollinger's Playoff Odds to predict the final W/L tally for each team, here are the first round match ups you'd have with the current system, in the East BOS(1)-CHI(8), DET(2)-PHI(7), ORL(3)-WAS(6), CLE(4)-TOR(5), and in the West LAL(1)-GS(8), HOU(2)-PHO(7), SAS(3)-DAL(6), UTA(4)-NO(5). You'd have 3 yawners in the East, with one potentially interesting match up betweeen Cleveland and Toronto, but in the West every match up has the potential to be a real battle that would normally be worthy of a Conference Finals in any normal year.

If you ditch the conferences for purpose of seeding then you get a top sixteen that looks like this, BOS(1)-WAS(16), DET(2)-POR(15), LAL(3)-TOR(14), HOU(4)-CLE(13), SAS(5)-DEN(12), UTA(6)-GS(11), ORL(7)-PHO(10), NO(8)-DAL(9). 10 teams from the West, 6 teams from the (l)East. One Eastern team (Cleveland) loses home court in the first round, and one Western team gains it (New Orleans), and more importantly Portland and Denver get to have some more April fun, while woeful Chicago (or Atlanta) and mediocre Philadelphia get to contemplate ping pong balls in the draft lottery. Only one match up is between two East squads, while three games pair two Western teams. Travel would be coast to coast (or nearly) in three of the match ups, but if they went with an all league playoff format, they'd have to take into account having that kind of travel in every round of the playoff, some sort of accomodation could be made, using the 2-3-2 format of the finals and always having 2 days off between travel when skipping more than 2 time zones would be a simple adjustment to make (when match ups are within the same or adjacent time zones, then one day off for travel would be OK).

You'd lose a couple of really good match ups in the West, but you'd gain two better teams in the playoffs, and you'd gain a few interesting cross-conference contests in the first round.

This is my hypothetical so I'm going to go ahead and predict the entire playoff based on these match ups:

1st round, favorites win most of these series, but three lower seeds advance, Cleveland rides LeBron over the Yao-less Rockets. Phoenix overpowers Orlando as Shaq gets somewhat revived revisiting his old stomping grounds. Golden State avenges last year's 2nd round exit at the hands of Utah, despite great play from Deron Williams. With this new playoff format, rather than keeping the teams in brackets, I'd re-seed the playoffs each round, that'd also mean that you'd have to wait for all the match ups to be decided before preceding to the next round, but that's as it should be, anyway. Given those 3 upsets, and re-seeding, the 2nd round looks like this, BOS(1)-CLE(13), DET(2)-GS(11), LAL(3)-PHO(10), SAS(5)-NO(8). Now that's a 2nd round that has intriguing match ups top to bottom.

Boston versus Cleveland looks like a likely 2nd round match up in the current playoff system, so I guess this series is inevitable no matter how you slice it. Boston will prevail, but they'll get tested, they simply have too much talent with their starters plus newly acquired Sam Cassell, and despite LeBron's great play, he doesn't have enough other players with him to overcome Boston's depth.

Detroit's solid defense versus the scoring of Golden State is another really fun 2nd round match up. Golden State is capable of pulling off this upset, but Detroit is a bit too solid and deep to be upset by a team like Golden State.

LA Lakers in their annual playoff match up against Phoenix could be a great 2nd round match up, also. Shaq should be fully intergrated into the Suns plans by then, and will give it everything he's got to beat his old team. But the Lakers have a lot more depth than Phoenix, are a lot younger than Phoenix, and would love to knock them out of the playoffs after losing in the 1st round the previous two seasons.

San Antonio against New Orleans would be pretty fun to watch, also. Could go either way, if San Antonio doesn't play like an old team, and New Orleans doesn't play like an inexperienced young team, then this will be the most competitive match up of the 2nd round. Too close to call, really, but I think the experience of San Antonio will show up big time and they'll win a close game 7 at home.

That sets up a final four of Boston against San Antonio and Detroit against Los Angeles. Both these match ups would be finals worthy most years, but instead you get them in the semi-finals. You could make solid cases for any one of these teams when matched up against the other, but I think Boston has enough to get past San Antonio, and Los Angeles has enough scoring to force Detroit to play at a faster tempo than they'd like.

That sets up the big Boston Celtics versus Los Angeles Lakers NBA Finals. You probably get there either way you go. Under the current format this is a likely looking Final, but either or both could get tripped up along the way.

Do I even have to say which team I think would win that Finals match up?

(as a hint, just imagine the exact opposite of what My Nemesis Bill Simmons™ would want)