On Tuesday, the NBA’s Board of Governors unanimously approved changes to how teams qualify for the playoffs and how they will be seeded. Teams will now be seeded based on the order of their regular-season records. Previously, every division winner was guaranteed a top four seed in its conference regardless of record but did not receive home-court advantage if its playoff opponent had a better regular season mark.
The Board also approved changes to tiebreaker criteria for playoff seeding and determining home-court advantage. Head-to-head results have become the first criteria to break ties for playoff seeding and home-court advantage between two teams with identical regular season records, with the second criteria being if a team won its division. Under the old system, a division winner was awarded the higher seed and received home-court advantage in series between two teams with identical records.
This brings me to today’s topic: What are your thoughts on the new playoff seeding structure?
Will this new seeding structure make for improved playoff matchups, as well as increase the overall importance of regular season contests? Do these new rules penalize teams in weaker divisions since a top four seed would have been guaranteed to divisional champs under the old system? Take to the comments section below to share your thoughts, opinions, and concerns regarding these dramatic changes to the current playoff structure. We look forward to what you have to say on the matter.
Are division winners still guaranteed a playoff berth, even if they don’t finish with a top-8 record?
I realize it’s very unlikely to happen, but out West, the Northwest Division is one major Durant/Westbrook injury away from having zero 45-win teams. And that means their ‘Division Champ’ would probably have the 9th best record in the West.
It appears that winning the Division will only help as a second tiebreaker. If you were to win your division, but weren’t one of the teams with one of the top 8 records in the conference…then yes, you would be in the draft lottery instead of the playoffs.
This has been a long time coming. The unbalanced schedule isn’t really that much of a factor. Currently, you play every team in your conference four times, except four of the teams you play three times each. All four of those teams have to be from outside the division under the current structure, so if you balance the schedule, you’re probably only shifting two or, maybe, three of those games. That’s not a major issue within an 82-game schedule.
I believe this is a step in the directions of eliminating divisions completely. There will always be the conferences, but I’m not sure if we lose anything by not having divisions.
Divisions don’t seem to be important. Conferences are only important because teams shouldn’t be forced to travel cross country over and over again when they play so many games in a week.
It’d be interesting if there was a way to make a three or four conference system with unbalanced schedules letting teams play teams in their area, but then taking the top 16 teams regardless of conference.