NBA Considering Major Playoff Changes

[mph]

The league office is considering sweeping changes to the NBA playoffs, including reseeding the final 4 teams and creating a playoff tournament for the 7th through 10th teams in each conference. Sign me up. These changes sound awesome.

Whether the NBPA and enough owners agree with me is another matter.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/28145944/sources-nba-considering-reseeding-conference-finalists-postseason-play-in

[Acymetric]

I'm not sure I totally like reseeding the final four teams, but everything else sounds pretty cool.

[AGDukesky]

Both the NBA and Hockey playoffs are too long. Half the teams in a league should not be making the playoffs. Also, get off my lawn.

[SouthernDukie]

Both the NBA and Hockey playoffs are too long. Half the teams in a league should not be making the playoffs. Also, get off my lawn.

And gives us our precious back.

[wsb3]

Both the NBA and Hockey playoffs are too long. Half the teams in a league should not be making the playoffs. Also, get off my lawn.

Cut the NBA season to 60 games & maybe we would not have to hear about load management.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

Both the NBA and Hockey playoffs are too long. Half the teams in a league should not be making the playoffs. Also, get off my lawn.

Two totally different situations.

In hockey, one or more 7th and 8th seeded teams almost always make interesting and deep runs into the play-offs. Never happens in the NBA.

[mo.st.dukie]

Cut the NBA season to 60 games & maybe we would not have to hear about load management.

Yep. They're discussing cutting it to 78 with the in-season tournament and play-in games but that isn't enough of a cut. The idea of an in season tournament is cool but I think it should be modeled off of college basketball rather than European soccer. It would be cool to see multiple small in season tournaments that features 4-8 teams playing in locations that don't get much exposure to the NBA. Take a group of teams to play a tournament in some small to medium sized midwestern town or to play in the Bahamas or Puerto Rico. I know they play pre-season games in different locations so why not reduce preseason play and move those games to an in-season tournament with the main players playing for some kind of trophy or money or homecourt advantage in the playoffs. They could then maybe schedule the tournaments in February between the end of football and the start of March Madness.

I think they should do away with Eastern and Western conferences all together. What's the point of it? Keep the divisions for scheduling purposes but the idea of the playoffs being divided by conference seems unnecessary.

[mo.st.dukie]

Another option would be to make the month of February NBA barnstorming month. Groups of 4-8 teams go on tour together in cities and states that don't have NBA teams.

[JasonEvans]

I'm not sure I totally like reseeding the final four teams, but everything else sounds pretty cool.

I like it because it gives more teams an incentive to try to win games late in the year. Assuming the #11 and #12 teams are somewhat close to the #10 team in the standings, it probably means almost everyone in the league is in the playoff hunt until the final week of the season. That's a good thing.

I also like the notion of an in-season mini-tournament. Kinda cool way to make the regular season matter a bit more.

[ShaneRyan]

I like it because it gives more teams an incentive to try to win games late in the year. Assuming the #11 and #12 teams are somewhat close to the #10 team in the standings, it probably means almost everyone in the league is in the playoff hunt until the final week of the season. That's a good thing.

I also like the notion of an in-season mini-tournament. Kinda cool way to make the regular season matter a bit more.

I love it the mini-tournament idea as well. In the ESPN article, it mentions that the NBA has no illusions about getting complete buy-in right away, which is the right attitude to take, they know they'll need time and tradition to make it important. But for those who follow European soccer, the Cup competitions (on which this idea is modeled) are absolutely huge, and a really important prize on their own. If the NBA could ever get close to that, it would be great.

One thing I don't like is that they're going to try to have it culminate in mid-December, which is super early. I'd try to go later if I were them, string it out over the course of the season and have the finals not long before the end of the regular season.

[awhom111]

I love it the mini-tournament idea as well. In the ESPN article, it mentions that the NBA has no illusions about getting complete buy-in right away, which is the right attitude to take, they know they'll need time and tradition to make it important. But for those who follow European soccer, the Cup competitions (on which this idea is modeled) are absolutely huge, and a really important prize on their own. If the NBA could ever get close to that, it would be great.

One thing I don't like is that they're going to try to have it culminate in mid-December, which is super early. I'd try to go later if I were them, string it out over the course of the season and have the finals not long before the end of the regular season.

I know that more people are familiar with soccer (more respect needs to be given to the cup competitions in countries like the United States and India that are older than many European soccer cups) than European basketball, but the format the NBA keeps describing is more similar to the most common format in European basketball.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

Another option would be to make the month of February NBA barnstorming month. Groups of 4-8 teams go on tour together in cities and states that don't have NBA teams.

The home arena owners, normally the NBA team, or a combo of the NBA team and a college, or another NBA team, or a city, will not allow a month of lost revenues for the arena.

[ShaneRyan]

The home arena owners, normally the NBA team, or a combo of the NBA team and a college, or another NBA team, or a city, will not allow a month of lost revenues for the arena.

The players' union would hate it too I think, nobody wants to be away from home for a whole month.

[YmoBeThere]

The home arena owners, normally the NBA team, or a combo of the NBA team and a college, or another NBA team, or a city, will not allow a month of lost revenues for the arena.

Easy answer, they can do what the Spurs do. Every year for nearly 3 weeks, the AT&T Center is the central venue for the San Antonio rodeo, which attracts nearly 2 million people(likely not distinct people but number of tickets sold for all events). https://www.sarodeo.com/

During that time, the Spurs go on an extended road trip. All the teams have their own charters which facilitates the travel. While I am sure it isn't easy, it does create some extended homestands and short road trips later in the season.


Another option would be to make the month of February NBA barnstorming month. Groups of 4-8 teams go on tour together in cities and states that don't have NBA teams.

This coincides quite nicely with the SA Rodeo.

[uh_no]

The league office is considering sweeping changes to the NBA playoffs, including reseeding the final 4 teams and creating a playoff tournament for the 7th through 10th teams in each conference. Sign me up. These changes sound awesome.

Whether the NBPA and enough owners agree with me is another matter.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/28145944/sources-nba-considering-reseeding-conference-finalists-postseason-play-in

why not just cancel the regular season altogether?

[Forrest]

why not just cancel the regular season altogether?

Hornets best hope for making the playoffs . . .

[HereBeforeCoachK]

Easy answer, they can do what the Spurs do. Every year for nearly 3 weeks, the AT&T Center is the central venue for the San Antonio rodeo, which attracts nearly 2 million people(likely not distinct people but number of tickets sold for all events). https://www.sarodeo.com/

During that time, the Spurs go on an extended road trip. All the teams have their own charters which facilitates the travel. While I am sure it isn't easy, it does create some extended homestands and short road trips later in the season.

This coincides quite nicely with the SA Rodeo.

First off, if you stand by your "easy answer" comment, then you don't really know anything about venue management and finances. Because of one of the businesses I own forces me to understand it, I do.

Second, not everybody has the San Antonio Rodeo coming to town for three weeks. In fact, San Antonio is probably the only NBA city that does - perhaps Dallas and OKC might be able to do that. But you can't make policy on an outlier. It's foolish.

And third, the barnstorming idea floated above would involve taking all the revenue away from all the NBA venues. When the Spurs are on the road during the rodeo, other NBA venues are getting the revenues, not the barns that are being stormed....

[mph]

why not just cancel the regular season altogether?

Well, that might be overstating the impact of the changes slightly.

The play in games give the 7th and 8th seeds an advantage over the 9th and 10th seeds, as they only need to win one game to make it in. And, as Jason said, it makes the regular season more relevant for more teams.

Reseeding the final four actually rewards regular season excellence more by giving the 2 best teams an advantage, regardless of conference.

[bundabergdevil]

The only opinion filter I'm using on this is "do i care" and "would I be more interested" --- by those factors I could get behind the play-off re-seeding, which would encourage regular season excellence and a play-in game.

The mid-season tournament does nothing for me. A lot of the interest in the early season college ball tournaments is driven by seeing teams play each other that might not otherwise during the course of a normal season. There are 130 D1 teams so most will not pay each other in a season. Making sure , say, Duke and KU play in an early season tournament is a fun idea. With only 30 teams in the NBA, they all play each other during a 82 game season so why would I care to see some of them play each other in a slightly different format in the middle of the season with nothing at stake?

My two cents - spend them how you please.

[frb]

Both the NBA and Hockey playoffs are too long. Half the teams in a league should not be making the playoffs. Also, get off my lawn.

also highly profitable. Revenue goes directly to the bottom line. Very little added expense while gaining a lot of revenue.