It's being considered by Silver. If there were no conferences this year, right now we'd be the 7th seed with HCA over 10th seeded Memphis. Discuss.
I like the idea. No sense in letting shitty teams that can't even must a .500 record into the playoffs when potentially two 48-win teams miss the playoffs. That's garbage.
Would never work. You need conferences one way or another especially for the playoffs, mainly because I wouldn't wanna have to play Miami in a 2nd round series... could you imagine the travel? Realignment is what needs to be done.
I'm fine with conferences and the current schedule for the regular season. Just make it so the best 16 teams make the playoffs.
Why do you need conferences? You would just play every team about three times. No conference needed. 1 seed plays 16 seed.
I still think travel would suck. Especially for us... We would have to do SO many east coast road trips and I REALLY wouldn't wanna have to play east teams in the playoffs until the Finals. The playoffs would take as long as the Finals do for every series with days off in between.
Why does the schedule have to be balanced? The time thing for the playoffs would blow but trim round one back to best of five and most east coast teams will be gone by the second round anyway...
Just for SnG's this is a 1 vs 16 format currently. 1. SA vs 16. Minny 2. OKC vs 15. Washington 3. LAC vs 14. Brooklyn 4. Miami vs 13. Chicago 5. Indy vs 12. Toronto 6. Houston vs 11. Phoenix 7. Portland vs 10. Grizzlies 8. GS vs 9. Dallas
I'm on the fence about the idea. What I would like is having western conf teams all west of the Mississippi and east coast teams all east of it. I also thought, why not get rid of divisions and have 4 conferences, SE, SW, NE, NW. Getting rid of conferences altogether would hurt ticket sales in small markets. I think getting rid of the luxury tax and having a hard cap should be looked at with extra bonus money built in for incentives. Extra money coming from wins, health, team success, etc. I would also like to see a baseball sort of minor league situation for the D league and no restrictions for calling guys up or sending guys down. Each team having their own D league and if you want Murphy on the Blazers you can call him up and send Crabbe down for as long as you like. Essentially putting all D league players on possible roster spots without waiving or signing them offseason.
If they did 2-3-2 in each series, with one off day between same-site games and two off days when traveling, a seven-game series would max out at 15 days. Max 1 day off after a seven game series, and a team could max out at 28 games in 63 days from first round game 1 to finals game 7. Miami played 23 games in 60 days last year. All this to say, it wouldn't necessarily be the logistical nightmare you suggest.
Like the NFL. Nice. Maybe the NBA could become similar to the NFL... Two new conferences, 6 new divisions... National Basketball Conference: West: Lakers, Blazers, Kings, Jazz, and Nuggets North: Knicks, 76ers, Raptors, Pacers, and Bucks South: Spurs, Rockets, Hawks, Magic, and Hornets American Basketball Conference West: Clippers, Warriors, Suns, 'Wolves, and Thunder North: Nets, Clippers, Cavs, Bulls, and Pistons South: Heat, Pelicans, Mavs, Grizzlies, and Wizards Then reduce the season to 70 games play your divisional rivals 4x each and every other team twice.
How about keeping the Conferences, but any team with less than a .500 record gets bumped by a team from the other conference having a better record? Under that scenario, Charlotte & Atlanta would get bumped by Phoenix & Minnesota, but they'd have to play in the Eastern Conference bracket.