Adam Silver says he's considering how to reformat the NBA playoffs
Are we going to do away with conferences for the playoffs?
By
Zach Harper
•
2 min read
NBA commissioner Adam Silver joined the Golden State Warriors' broadcast Wednesday night when the Warriors beat the Dallas Mavericks. During the broadcast, Silver talked about the idea that so many fans, pundits, and maybe even players in the Western Conference have been dying to hear. The commissioner of the NBA is thinking about redesigning the NBA playoffs format to have the best teams in the postseason than just the top 8 from each conference.
Conference imbalance between the West and the East has been going on for over a decade now and it's left a good team or two in the West out of the playoffs while lesser teams in the East manage to get in. Here's how Silver put it to Bob Fitzgerald and Jim Barnett for the Warriors' broadcast, via ProBasketballTalk:
“Ultimately we want to see your best teams in the playoffs. And there is an unbalance and a certain unfairness. There is a proposal (from one of the broadcasters)… where the division winners would all automatically go into the playoffs and then you’d seed the next 10 best teams. I think that’s the kind of proposal we need to look at. There are travel issues of course, but in this day in age every team of course has their own plane, travels charter. I don’t think the discussion should end there. And as I’ve said, my first year I was studying a lot of these issues and year 2 is time to take action. It’s something I’m going to look at closely with the competition committee. I do think it’s an area where we need to make a change.”
Under the proposal he mentions, this season's playoffs would currently have Toronto, Cleveland, Atlanta, Portland, Golden State, and Memphis as the division winners locked for the playoffs. Then the next 10 best teams would be Houston, the Clippers, Dallas, San Antonio, Washington, Chicago, Phoenix, Milwaukee, New Orleans, and Oklahoma City in the playoffs. It would chop off Charlotte and Miami from the current playoff teams.
That sounds like a great idea for the teams getting into the playoffs, but how do you sell that to Michael Jordan, Micky Arison, and the other owners in the Eastern Conference? You're not only denying them a spot in the playoffs but they're losing out on playoff revenue. The simple solution is telling them to get better so they don't have to worry about dropping out of the playoff picture, but that's easier said than done.
We'll see where Silver and the other owners in the NBA stand on the issue this summer when it's time to discuss such things.
