What if the NBA playoffs were not Conference affiliated

[gusmahler]

In http://www.nba.com/warriors/interact...og_june07.html a proposal is made to re-align both the NBA and the playoff system.

Let's ignore the re-alignment for now and predict what would have happened had the bracket looked like this:


Phoenix crushes Washington and beats Cleveland. They then meet San Antonio, who beat NJ and Utah. Based on the real results, San Antonio makes it to the finals anyway.

The other bracket is tougher. Was Dalls/GSW just a matchup thing? Probably. GSW doesn't make it past DET and DAL beats the Clippers easily. CHI/TOR is interesting, but CHI probably pulls it out. And HOU beats the undermanned Lakers.

Hou then beats DET, where they meet Dallas. So the Final Four is three Texas teams and Phoenix?

Anyway, Dallas beats HOU, but loses to San Antonio in the Finals.

Better than this year's playoffs?

[lastchance]

I just wanted to see Mavs against Suns/Spurs.

Freaking golden state.

[onlinebeginner]

houston detroit series would have been interesting as well, but anyway i completely agree with this proposal... however using matchups specific to this season or even the last couple is silly.... look back over the past 20 years and see if it would look better.... i assume it does tho

[onlinebeginner]

cleveland denver would have been cool as well

[Victor]

hollingers plan is brilliant.

"I stumbled upon this idea the other day when I was talking to another writer and he joked, "They should play West versus East in the first round, not the last."

The more I think about it, this is no joke: They really should play West versus East earlier in the playoffs. It's a great way to reward the West powers while avoiding the train wreck Finals scenario created by the East's awfulness -- a scenario the league has found itself in in 1999, 2001 and 2002 and again this year.

Here's the nitty-gritty.

The regular season would play out just as it does now. Then the league would seed the teams 1 to 8 in each conference, just as it does now.

Then it changes -- the two conferences would cross-match in the playoffs, so every series is set up to be East versus West. Of course, in those cases when the lower-seeded West team is able to eliminate the higher-seeded East team, then we would have West versus West, which means this system would be working exactly as intended: We would have the stronger teams meeting in the later rounds, regardless of conference.

This year, for instance, No. 1 Detroit from the East would have faced No. 8 Golden State from the West, and No. 1 Dallas from the West would have faced No. 8 Orlando from the East.

Although we would have lost the scintillating Warriors-Mavs series, the big picture would have been enhanced greatly under this plan. You can quickly see how much better the next three rounds might have been.

Instead of the league's losing its MVP in the first round, Dallas would have had a virtual bye. And Detroit would have been the team facing the stern challenge of beating a torrid Golden State team that was perhaps the most atypical No. 8 seed the league has seen.

And the situation only improves from there, culminating in an NBA Finals with Phoenix facing Dallas or San Antonio. "

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dailydime

[talentdeficit]

the problem with the east vs west crossover in the first round is that there's way way more variance in the playoff matchups (not the results of the matchups, the matchups themselves). this makes rivalries much harder to build.

[Jack of Arcades]

Rivalries would be easier to develop as you'd have more even matchups in the end.

[polkaface]

[ QUOTE ]
Rivalries would be easier to develop as you'd have more even matchups in the end.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree with this wholeheartedly. Think about Phoenix/San Antonio. Every year they know they (most likely) have to play each other to get to the finals. Dallas knew for the past 5 years or so they most likely had to go through SA/Phx (and before that Sac) to get anywhere.

If you disperse these teams to both sides of the bracket, then you are banking on the fact that each of these teams makes it through each year or else you lose your rivalries. A rivlary becomes a rivalry because you have to play the SAME TEAMS over an extended amount of time/seasons.

Dallas played Sac 3 seasons in a row in the playoffs.
Phx has played SA 3 of the last 5 seasons.
When Detroit/Chicago had their big series in the 80s and 90s they weren't the 2 best teams, they just knew they had to play each other every season to get to the finals.

When you throw 16 teams all over the bracket it becomes difficult to cultivate those rivalries. You actually want the best teams bunched up on one side year after year after year. That's what makes rivalries.

[MediaPA]

Let's have some more fun with this idea. how about you have to prove that you can win 4 out of every 7 games against 'random' opposition. That would mean 57.1 win percentage.

Goodbye Lakers, Golden State, Denver, New Jersey, Washington, Orlando.

Ok, now we're down to 10 teams this year. 5 from each side. Top 3 from each side get to chill. 4 versus 5 series gets played (best of 3). Now you just play it out. I don't what teams are in what conference so much. If it really bothers someone, just re-rank the teams at the conference final stage by regular and post season win percentage. Done.

Here's another silly idea. Round robin home and away games. Top two from each group advance.

Obviously this could work out different every year, but let's get completely outside the box and quit rewarding mediocre teams with playoff births.

[tuq]

gus,

Tasty hypothetical, but never going to happen obv. Christ, the league can't even undo their retarded 2-3-2 finals mistake from 20+ years ago, so I hardly expect them to sign off on the Exhausting! Rigors! Of Travel! that some of those series would entail.

I mean just look at the finals - that one hour time difference must really take a toll on the players and will no doubt have a detrimental effect on the series going forward. As if it could get any worse.