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NBA to seed conference playoff teams by record

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Andrew

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The NBA Board of Governors unanimously approved changes to playoff seeding and qualification procedures effective with the 2015-16 season, the league announced Tuesday.

As part of the modifications, the eight playoff teams in each conference will be seeded in order of their regular-season record. Most recently, every division winner was guaranteed a top four seed in its respective conference regardless of its record but did not receive home-court advantage if its playoff opponent had a better record.

http://www.nba.com/2015/news/09/08/nba-to-seed-conference-playoff-teams-by-record/index.html


Seems like a logical progression.
 
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Bout time.

Seems like a logical progression. I hate teams who just aim to win the division for a playoff spot, now...no more.

Well, I assume the Division winners still get a playoff spot. They just won't get a top 4 seed out of it. So a division winner is guaranteed at least an 8-seed.
 
Bout time.



Well, I assume the Division winners still get a playoff spot. They just won't get a top 4 seed out of it. So a division winner is guaranteed at least an 8-seed.
Didn't think about that. This does have an effect on every team though, I doubt James takes a 2 week breather if this was in place last season.
 
Didn't think about that. This does have an effect on every team though, I doubt James takes a 2 week breather if this was in place last season.

We were the second seed based on our win-loss record, not the fact that we won the division. LeBron has been on record as believing that the seed for his team doesn't matter as long as he's in the playoffs.

This situation is more important for the west teams, many of which were pissed that Portland got a top 4 seed even though they should have been 7th (iirc) if it was all about win percentage. That's what caused the clips and Spurs to have to play each other in the first round.
 
We were the second seed based on our win-loss record, not the fact that we won the division. LeBron has been on record as believing that the seed for his team doesn't matter as long as he's in the playoffs.

This situation is more important for the west teams, many of which were pissed that Portland got a top 4 seed even though they should have been 7th (iirc) if it was all about win percentage. That's what caused the clips and Spurs to have to play each other in the first round.
I just doubt he would take 2 weeks off when they were 1 game below .500 at the time.
 
Well it was confirmed that division winners aren't guaranteed playoff berths by an exec.

So essentially those division banners are even more worthless now. I don't really like that, don't really see a point for divisions if winning them doesn't guarantee anything. Although winning games against division opponents will likely get you in theoretically.

If you look back in the last 10 years, has a team missed the playoffs due to a team with a poor record that happened to be a division winner? I just don't see why they'd go that far so soon.
 
There shouldn't be divisions anymore. Take that out and teams play the conference evenly, or as even as possible, the top 8 make it. I wish we had relegation too.
 
Well, I assume the Division winners still get a playoff spot. They just won't get a top 4 seed out of it. So a division winner is guaranteed at least an 8-seed.

It's got to be borderline impossible to have enough wins to win a five-team division and not be a top eight team anyway, right?
 
It's got to be borderline impossible to have enough wins to win a five-team division and not be a top eight team anyway, right?
Yeah, it would have to be unprecedented.

But you can look at a division like the Southwest, all five of those teams made the playoffs. Then two from the Pacific. Portland was the only Northwest team to make the playoffs. Probably the closest we've seen it come.
 
Yeah, it would have to be unprecedented.

But you can look at a division like the Southwest, all five of those teams made the playoffs. Then two from the Pacific. Portland was the only Northwest team to make the playoffs. Probably the closest we've seen it come.

Keep in mind that Portland was still a respectable 51-31 last year, comfortably ahead of the 8/9 seeds. Just one team from a division making the playoffs is rare, but it's happened several times since the last realignment to six divisions.

The closest we've actually come to this scenario was in 2005-06, when Denver won their division with a 44-38 record and received the #3 seed, while Sacramento with the same 44-38 record was the #8 seed (and Sacramento would have had the tiebreaker if we ignore division winner as a tiebreaker, so Denver was rightfully #8 that year). #9 Utah was close behind at 41-41. Of course, Utah is in Denver's division, so if they had passed Denver, they would have won the division themselves. It would have taken someone like New Orleans at #10 (38-44) passing both Denver and Utah. Still, it's possible.
 
Now they need to extend this principle to the entire league. Have the 16 teams with the best overall records play in the playoffs.
 
No idea. I know nothing about these leagues. What do you think?

Ah gotcha. Well the question doesn't apply then if you don't care about the other leagues.

I'm all for the NBA having the top 8 in each conference be determined and seeded solely by record (i.e., not giving any favor to division winners). But I'd prefer to stop it there, and not have that expand to the best 16 teams in the entire NBA make it. Because then that would mean (I assume) that the playoff matchups could have east/west matchups every round of the playoffs, rather than the East on one side of a bracket and the West on the other side. It essentially negates the purpose of conferences altogether. I feel fine negating most purposes of a division, but I feel differently about conferences I guess.

And I'm wondering if anyone who wants the 16 best to make it in the NBA, also want that to apply to the MLB and NFL? And if not, why the NBA but not the others?
 

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