David Stern Proposes New playoff format

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Postby air gordon on Fri May 19, 2006 8:11 am

Andrew wrote:I suppose I exaggerated a bit and the Spurs' victory today which of course was another close one evens things up a bit. But the Mavs did win three straight and if they close out in six, I don't know if I'd call it a matchup that should have been the Western Finals.

i don't follow. because it may not go to a game 7?

with the exception of 1 game, every game has been awesome. both teams playing at a very high level. the series could very well be 3-2 in the Spurs favor.
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Postby Sauru on Fri May 19, 2006 11:24 am

VanK wrote:I completely forgot that there were previously 29 teams in the League. Still, wouldn't that system make life easier for teams in a 7 team division? There would be less competition and a smaller possibility for a bunch of heavy contenders to gather up in the same division. That's a bit unfair.


going back to a 4 div system would not change it much at all imo. the big problem now is weaker teams getting better seeds simply for winning a weaker div. if you go back to 4 thier schedules could infact stay exactly the same giving no team any advantage or disadvantage in that respect. you could make the point that haveing 1 less team makes it harder to win the division but i dont really buy that. keeping the same schedule type as we do now it really just comes down to winning games. i mean should the east be penelized for being weaker? should we let in 10 western teams and only 6 from the east?
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Postby iKe7in on Fri May 19, 2006 12:40 pm

I know it won't happen but what I would rather see is for the playoffs the conferences don't matter. Rank the top 16 (or preferrably 8) teams 1 to 16 (or 8) by wins, no matter what division or conference. So this year wouldve looked like:

1. Detroit
2. San Antonio
3. Dallas
4. Phoenix
5. Miami
6. Cleveland
7. Memphis
8. New Jersey
9. LA Clippers
10. LA Lakers
11. Denver
12. Sacramento
13. Washington
14. Utah
15. Chicago
16. Indiana

This way you would end up with no teams below .500 getting in, and you ensure that the best two teams would only face each other in the finals. The matchups would've looked like:

Detroit vs. Indiana
San Antonio vs. Chicago
Dallas vs. Utah
Phoenix vs. Washington
Miami vs. Sacramento
Cleveland vs. Denver
Memphis vs. LA Lakers
New Jersey vs. LA Clippers

Now if the travel seems too much, then my other suggestion of reducing the teams that get in to 8, then extra travel days can be given without the playoffs taking three months. If that was done, the matchups would look like this:

Detroit vs. New Jersey
San Antonio vs. Memphis
Dallas vs. Cleveland
Phoenix vs. Miami

The Clippers are the only team that is currently still in that wouldn't have made it, but you eliminate the teams (both LA teams) who bolstered their record against the weaker Eastern Conference.

The results of this is that every game is competitive, and every series would be close. This way the top teams don't have a warmup round, and teams might not coast through the final month of the season.

Again, I know it will never happen, but its fun to dream. Anyone else like this idea?
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Postby Andrew on Fri May 19, 2006 9:09 pm

benji wrote:They aren't reseeding the teams in the second round. They're reseeding the top four teams based on record, so the three division winners and the other best team.


My mistake there. That's not so bad, though such a system would still be unfair to a team like the fifth seeded Grizzlies who had a better record than the third seeded Nuggets, as did the Clippers as the sixth seed.

air gordon wrote:i don't follow. because it may not go to a game 7?

with the exception of 1 game, every game has been awesome. both teams playing at a very high level. the series could very well be 3-2 in the Spurs favor.


True, it did look a lot more lopsided through the first four games when only looking at the wins and losses. And the Spurs have shown they're not done yet extending the series in Game 5 so my assessment was somewhat premature to say the least. Still, I think had the Mavericks prevailed 4-1 it would have been somewhat anti-climactic considering the reaction to the Spurs/Suns WCF series last year which ended 4-1 with an average winning margin of 6.2 ppg (funnily enough the same as the first five games of the Spurs/Mavs series though Game 2 obviously accounts for that).

In any event, it's likely that one way or another the Spurs or Mavericks would have to go through the other team to advance to the NBA Finals. Just because this series was highly anticipated and features the two best teams in the West doesn't mean the rest of the Playoffs will be boring.
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Postby Sauru on Sat May 20, 2006 8:53 am

iKe7in wrote:I know it won't happen but what I would rather see is for the playoffs the conferences don't matter. Rank the top 16 (or preferrably 8) teams 1 to 16 (or 8) by wins, no matter what division or conference. So this year wouldve looked like:

Again, I know it will never happen, but its fun to dream. Anyone else like this idea?



i dont much like this idea too much, i like ranking 1-8 in each conference. actually i like ranking 3-8 by records and take the 2 div winners for the top 2 spots(based on if i had my way with 4 div). even without getting my way i dont like mixing the conference prior to the finals. i would hate 2 see 2 eastern or 2 western teams playing for it all.
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Postby Andrew on Sat May 20, 2006 5:00 pm

Agreed. I think the East vs West structure is necessary else there isn't much point having conferences and divisions if ultimately it's just the top 16 teams regardless of their location.

Also, after watching Game 6 of the Spurs/Mavs series I will have to take back my earlier comment about the series not being Conference Final material, as I said before it was a little premature. But I still feel that it doesn't matter too much that this series has come in the second round. It was likely to happen at some point and I don't believe it's all downhill from here as far as the Playoffs are concerned just because it was a much anticipated matchup.
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Postby Sauru on Mon May 22, 2006 7:03 am

me either, i think the conference finals will be good no matter who is in it. hell sometimes a team can be swept and still have it be a good series. i mean if you play and every single game goes down to the wire then imo thats a good series.
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Postby iKe7in on Mon May 22, 2006 1:16 pm

Andrew wrote:Agreed. I think the East vs West structure is necessary else there isn't much point having conferences and divisions if ultimately it's just the top 16 teams regardless of their location.


Well the point of having conferences is because there are too many teams to play all equally and still maintain some sense of rivalry, while keeping travel to a minimum.
But why have a championship series between two teams with no relation to each other?
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Postby Andrew on Mon May 22, 2006 8:38 pm

I did oversimplify, there are more reasons behind divisions and conferences than the NBA Finals matchup, though the significance of conferences greatly decreases if you're just going to take the top 16 teams regardless of location. I'm not sure what you mean by "a championship series between two teams with no relation to each other". They're all playing in the same league, dividing the teams (amongst other advantages) allows the league to easily devise playoff brackets.
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Postby Sauru on Tue May 23, 2006 6:50 am

not to mention that every team plays each other every single year. i rather see a finals between 2 teams that rarely play each other than between 2 teams that played 5 times already.
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Postby hammertime23 on Tue May 23, 2006 6:52 am

i think david stern is retarted for having the playoffs like this in the first place
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Postby iKe7in on Tue May 23, 2006 8:09 am

Andrew wrote:I'm not sure what you mean by "a championship series between two teams with no relation to each other". They're all playing in the same league, dividing the teams (amongst other advantages) allows the league to easily devise playoff brackets.

I meant that the NBA finals is composed of two teams who play each other once a year, and ahve no relation to each other, besides the fact that they are in the NBA. Conference final mathcups are usually much more exciting than the finals, as it usually takes at least two games before the teams figure out how to play each other, or build up any kind of general dislike.

If the playoffs are more interleague, not only do you get the best 16 (or 8) teams regardless of who they played throughout the season, but you get more rivalries between teams that do not usually match up. The other thing I notice is that in this era of one conference being so much better than the other, a team like Detroit built up their record against a weaker competition, and so far has onl faced minor adversity in the playoffs. They coasted into the playoffs, and still won all four games against Milwaukee by at least 10 points. How do you justify allowing a team that lost more games than they won a chance to win the championship.

If my suggestion was in place already, and the opening round looked like this:
Detroit vs. New Jersey
San Antonio vs. Memphis
Dallas vs. Cleveland
Phoenix vs. Miami
...then every round would be competitive, only the teams who deserve a chance at the championship are given that opportunity, and new rivalries are built between the leagues best teams.

This also would start to affect the teams that don't get in, as the pressure to win during the regular season grows. Teams can no longer make millions off playoff revenue from a team thats only .500.
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Postby Sauru on Tue May 23, 2006 10:53 am

not to be rude but are you young? like 19 to 20? reason i ask is cause the finals have only recently been lacking, atleast to me. the mathups of the 80's and part of the 90's were damn good imo. i think the problem with the nba now is not the playoff system, its the free agency and ability to go millions over the cap. i would love to see a hard cap in the nba to help even things out, of course thats just a pipe dream so long as the players union runs the show.
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Postby Andrew on Tue May 23, 2006 9:12 pm

I see where you're coming from iKe7in, but as Sauru said it's interesting to watch teams that play each other sparingly during the regular season (twice, not once to be precise ;)).

I also agree with Sauru as far as the Finals matchups are concerned. We've seen some matchups that probably haven't been the most exciting, but to me the Finals are seldom boring. I was a little restless after the first four games last year because I'm not a Spurs or Pistons fan and with both teams winning big in those games I felt it lacked the drama and down to the wire excitement a game needs when you're fairly neutral towards the teams that are playing (of course when the Bulls play, I'm not unhappy if they win in a blowout). But Games 5-7 more than made up for that.
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Postby Sauru on Wed May 24, 2006 10:50 am

i am with you there andrew, as i am sure most fans are. i know if the celts ever make the finals again and win the series in 4 by a average of 18 points a game i am damn happy.
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