Realignment Option

[Boise Blazer]

Check out @teamziller's Tweet:

As several interested parties commented publicly and privately, it's tough to end conferences without also dealing with the underlying schedule imbalance. Teams currently play the 14 other teams in their conference a total of 52 times and the 15 teams from the other conference a total of 30 times. That allows the really good East teams to goose their records and further depresses their Western counterparts. If you seeded the top 16 teams while keeping the current schedule, East teams would still get a persistent advantage due to having many more cupcake opponents every single year.

 

[magnifier661]

Pacific and big west still dominant

 

[PtldPlatypus]

Best team in the league, and the Grizzlies still can't get any respect.

 

[PtldPlatypus]

On a serious note, this would make scheduling difficult--assuming retention of the current 82-game schedule.

• Oddly enough, the most balanced way to schedule 82 under this format would be 3 against teams out-of-division and just 2 against each team in division (24*3 + 5*2 = 82).
• If you wanted to tilt the balance toward teams in the same division, you could go 4 against each team in division, leaving 62 games to be distributed across the other 24 teams--presumably 3 games with 14 teams and 2 games with 10 others (5*4 + 14*3 + 10*2 = 82). Could use a model similar to the NFL's scheduling model to ensure more games between each division's top teams.
• 4 games v division foes and 2 against every other team would result in a reduced 68-game schedule. That might be worth consideration too.

 

[Hobbesarable]

Best team in the league, and the Grizzlies still can't get any respect.

SBNation has them there in the SE Region. Tom Ziller cut too much from the bottom margin of the original pic. What a noob!

http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2014/11/26/7280545/nba-schedule-reform-regions-map-playoffs

 

[BlazerWookee]

Should be six divisions of five teams.

 

[BlazerDuckSeahawkFan94]

Just swap the Blazers to the Pacific and move the Suns to what would become the "Mountain" division (Suns, Jazz, Nuggets, Thunder and Wolves)

 

[riverman]

condensing the west makes it even harder to win your division. I don't see parity on the map at all.

 

[Mediocre Man]

How would the playoffs work? I didn't read if it was posted.

 

[PtldPlatypus]

How would the playoffs work? I didn't read if it was posted.

16 best records, irrespective of division.

 

[Mediocre Man]

16 best records, irrespective of division.

Ahh

 

[BlazerDuckSeahawkFan94]

What about the idea of making two conferences like the NFL? That could potentially balance things out.

 

[Natebishop3]

Will the NBA's version of the SEC get the same kind of media bias?

 

[Sinobas]

I think divisions and conferences in general are stupid in all sports. I say line up the top teams in the league and put them into the playoff bracket. If you want teams to play teams that are geographically closer more...fine, but it shouldn't have any bearing on who makes the playoffs or seeding.