by Chris Agar (Whetstone Staff Writer)
The 2010 NBA Playoffs tipped off this month, so I figured now would be a good time to share my way to fix the current system.
Under the current format, more than half the teams in the league (16 out of 30, eight from each conference) make it, but several of those teams aren’t deserving of a playoff spot.
Basketball fans shouldn’t have to see a series like last year’s Detroit vs. Cleveland first round, where the little 8-seed got mauled by LeBron and Co. in a comically bad four-game sweep.
In the Eastern Conference, there are playoff teams each year with losing records. The Knicks were in the playoff hunt for a bit this season. If that isn’t bad, I don’t know what is.
Besides the lack of competitive series, the biggest problem is the fact that the postseason goes on for far too long.
This year, the playoffs start on April 17 and end in the middle of June. Two months is too much for one sport’s playoffs. Football gets the playoffs done in about a month. Baseball gets the playoffs done in about a month. Why does it take the NBA two months? Aside from money, there’s no reason for it.
Here is how we fix the NBA Playoffs to make them fun and short.
First, cut the number of teams that qualify. I already touched on this subject. Teams with sub-.500 records shouldn’t be allowed to play in the playoffs. The postseason is meant for elite teams.
My system cuts down the number of teams from 16 to 10. If you win the division, you clinch a spot. There are six divisions in the league (three in each conference). The division winners will be seeded by record. The team with the best record will be the top seed with home court advantage. The remaining four spots will be reserved for wild card teams, two in each conference. The two teams with the best non-division winning records qualify, like baseball.
Step two is to shorten the length of the rounds. Under my system, there will be four rounds: the Wild Card, Conference Semifinals, Conference Finals and NBA Finals. The wild card round will borrow from the NFL’s single elimination format. The fourth and fifth seeds in both conferences will play each other in a single elimination game to determine who plays the number one seed.
Networks would be outbidding each other for broadcasting rights, sponsors would pay big bucks to advertise, and the two teams would be killing each other. Call it Wild Card Saturday on ABC and you’ve got a winner.
The semifinals would include the wild card winner against the top seed and the second seed versus the third seed. The series will be in a best-of-five format like the old days. This gives the lower seeds a better chance to pull off an upset and makes the round go by quicker. It would be wildly entertaining, and it would work.
The Conference finals would only change slightly.
It’d still be best-of-seven, but instead of the 2-2-1-1-1 format, it would follow the NBA Finals’ 2-3-2 format to eliminate unnecessary travel days and make the series go by faster. These guys don’t need all the travel days. They play 82 games a year and travel all over the country every week. They can manage losing a few travel days during the playoffs.
The only potential downside to this would be an apparent lack of parity in the league. If the elite teams have a good core of players, then it would be harder for the second-tier teams to advance.
But look at Major League Baseball. In the 2000s, only the Yankees and the Red Sox were multiple World Series winners. The Diamondbacks and Marlins won titles. The Astros and White Sox played each other in
2005. The Tampa Bay Rays won the AL East and pennant in 2008. It’s possible for a surprise team to sneak in there.
Under this format, a month would be cut out of the NBA Playoff schedule.
The Finals would be over in the middle of May and the sports world can turn its focus to baseball as the season starts to heat up.
