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NBA Postseason Change Ideas

LoPo said:
This is just a terrible look for the league (front page on ESPN): http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/22573750/how-nba-bottom-dwellers-putting-tanking-clinic-nba

Something has to be done about teams losing on purpose. It's starting to affect us. Since the All Star Break, the Suns have "lost" twice to West teams fighting for the playoffs. The Kings and Bulls have also "lost" similar games. Our early schedule was brutal and now we are paying the price for our competitors getting easy wins.
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Yeah, but if the jazz were in the same position to tank we would all be cheering every loss on our way to doncic. Teams that are tanking owe the jazz nothing. Jazz had a horrible stretch with an extremely hard schedule. If they had won a hand full of those games they wouldn't be in this position. Basically it doesn't matter at all what other teams do as long as the jazz take care of theirs. Let em tank. Makes for a few easier wins for jazz

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Keep the current playoff format. It's fine, there's nothing so wrong with the current format that it needs to be changed. The NBA should be focused on other things. I haven't seen one proposal for a new format that I like. I don't like the idea of seeding teams 1-16 regardless of conference because it makes divisions and conferences meaningless. It kills rivalries. And it would likely make the early rounds of the playoffs worse because there will be an even bigger disparity in matchups. I also dislike the proposed idea of play in games, 7th seed vs 10th seed/8th seed vs 9th seed. If a team isn't good enough to have a top 8 record in their conference after 82 games they don't deserve another chance. I hope they just leave it alone. The current format is fine.
 
Dont add more teams to the playoffs, its already watered down.

I would like to see the Conferences stay as is as a way of qualifying for playoffs then taking top 8 from each and reseading 1-16.

As for lottery and tanking the best idea Ive read so far is a "rotation" model.
 
I think you take the top 16, but seed according to conference first, with extras going over to the other conference. So the 9th team in one conference might play as the 6th team in the other. That will preserve the rivalries of the better teams in each conference.
 
One Brow said:
I think you take the top 16, but seed according to conference first, with extras going over to the other conference. So the 9th team in one conference might play as the 6th team in the other. That will preserve the rivalries of the better teams in each conference.
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So the biggest problem with the playoffs is that the NBA finals is going to be pretty much anti-climatic. The 2 best teams in the league are in the western conference. The 2 best teams should meet in the NBA finals not the conference championship game. Who cares if the 9th best team in the west gets in, instead of the 8th best team in the east? Only people who care about that are fans of the 9th best team in the West. But this year the 2 best teams will play before the finals in the WCF and the Finals are going to be a forgone conclusion.
 
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What about this. 1-14 seeded, (top 2 seeds get a bye), play-in tournament for seeds 13 and 14 for the 13th-20th ranked teams. Winners of the tournament jump to the 11th and 12th picks (and make the playoffs). That may be too hefty, and if so maybe the winners get 31st and 32nd compensatory picks. The bottom 10 who don't make playoffs or tourney have equal 10% chance at top picks.
 
Play in games for baseball kind of make sense. Like 30 teams, and only 8 make playoffs. 3 divisions winners from each league, the the next 2 best teams in each league play 1 game to get in.
NBA the play in game idea is horrible. You already have 16 out of 30 teams in. I don't like the idea of an 8 seed that won 45 games losing a spot to a 39 win team over 1 game. I think the regular season should mean something. Plus look how exciting this year is. 8 teams for 6 spots within 4 or 5 games. Play in would kill some of it
Keeping top 8 from each conference and putting them 1-16 is cool. After every round you could even reseed so 1 always plays lowest ranked team. Shorten the first round to 3 of 5 to make up for any extra travel distance.

Best 2 teams would theoretically have the best path to the finals.

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gregbroncs said:
So the biggest problem with the playoffs is that the NBA finals is going to be pretty much anti-climatic. The 2 best teams in the league are in the western conference. The 2 best teams should meet in the NBA finals not the conference championship game. Who cares if the 9th best team in the west gets in, instead of the 8th best team in the east? Only people who care about that are fans of the 9th best team in the West. But this year the 2 best teams will play before the finals in the WCF and the Finals are going to be a forgone conclusion.
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I would prefer that teams that have improved themselves get teh extra money and national recognition that goes with being a playoff team. I would also prefer that the teams which are not genuinely in the top 16 get slightly better draft picks.

I agree that the two best are in the West, but I doubt we'll see a 4-game sweep in the Finals. There will still be some drama.
 
For the draft - I think every team should have the ability to get one #1 pick every 10 years. If a team gets a #1 pick in say 2018, maybe they stop tanking as much if they know they cant get the #1 pick again for a while. I'm not big on an automatic rotation but a #1 limit would be cool.

For the season - Teams should get some kind of financial compensation per season win. If the money is the same win or lose, then what is the incentive to win? The owners will have more of a reason to influence a team towards wins if the bottom line is affected.

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LoPo said:
For the draft - I think every team should have the ability to get one #1 pick every 10 years. If a team gets a #1 pick in say 2018, maybe they stop tanking as much if they know they cant get the #1 pick again for a while. I'm not big on an automatic rotation but a #1 limit would be cool.

For the season - Teams should get some kind of financial compensation per season win. If the money is the same win or lose, then what is the incentive to win? The owners will have more of a reason to influence a team towards wins if the bottom line is affected.

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I think that there should be some rule similar to your first idea here. Maybe you cant have more than 1 top three pick over a 5 year span or something. If you are in the lottery and have alread had a top 3 pick recently then the best you can get is #4 or something.
 
MDAV28 said:
What about this. 1-14 seeded, (top 2 seeds get a bye), play-in tournament for seeds 13 and 14 for the 13th-20th ranked teams. Winners of the tournament jump to the 11th and 12th picks (and make the playoffs). That may be too hefty, and if so maybe the winners get 31st and 32nd compensatory picks. The bottom 10 who don't make playoffs or tourney have equal 10% chance at top picks.
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I was thinking something similar, but having the 7th & 8th seed teams play 1 game for post-season position, plus something like giving a 5% chance in the lottery for the winner and 3.5% for the loser. Maybe even go as far as guaranteeing something like a 10th and 11th pick for the winners. Losers will get their 15th and 16th pick. Pay the players, coaching staff, announcers, etc. a nice bonus for this bonus game. Players on the winning team all get more than the losing team. Also, give those 4 teams picks 27-30 and the top 4 finalists get the first 4 second rounders. This system could be modified for a play-in game for teams 9-10, given they are within a few wins of the 8th seed. This increases NBA revenue, incentivizes winning, and gives the players a reason to care.

It would also make the most interesting games of the year for so many fans "on the bubble" and bring in a ******** of revenue.
 
Those bringing up that play-in games/tournaments devalue the regular season have a point...

Idk, if there's ONE change I would do that I think would help the most league-wide it would be eliminating max contracts and implementing a hard-cap. The parity is the biggest problem and effects every single personnel move. I have a hard time believing superstars would be turning down 10s of millions a year to play together.

I hate tanking when it comes to just sitting players in order to lose, but I don't necessarily mind what Philly did, or just running a team w/ a bunch of young guys.
 
MDAV28 said:
Those bringing up that play-in games/tournaments devalue the regular season have a point...

Idk, if there's ONE change I would do that I think would help the most league-wide it would be eliminating max contracts and implementing a hard-cap. The parity is the biggest problem and effects every single personnel move. I have a hard time believing superstars would be turning down 10s of millions a year to play together.

I hate tanking when it comes to just sitting players in order to lose, but I don't necessarily mind what Philly did, or just running a team w/ a bunch of young guys.
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Agree. I think if you remove max contracts and have a hard cap a lot of the other stuff will sort itself out.
 
elan_prodigy said:
Agree. I think if you remove max contracts and have a hard cap a lot of the other stuff will sort itself out.
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What would happen if you had a hard cap AND max contracts?
 
fishonjazz said:
What would happen if you had a hard cap AND max contracts?
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Im not sure tbh. The worst thing about MAX contracts is guys in the league all want to be 'MAX' guys. I guess it would look something like 2xMAX guys per team surrounded by guys on $10Mil/yr or less. Just writing it I can see how it could lead to a 2 tier economy or the 'haves' and 'have nots'.

Imo with a hard cap and NO MAX contracts players will be paid closer to what theyre worth.
 
A hard cap means teams won't be able to overpay to keep players local. If you could make $20 million in SLC and get endorsement on a market with 1 million people, vs. the same pay in New York but endorsements that reach 10 million people (and pay considerably better), New York wins every time.
 
Bunch of mentions of the top team(s) being able to choose their first round opponents (in the media recently)... I think this would be an interesting dynamic.
 
Thee jazz fan said:
Wasn't that made clear, tanking?
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I’ve read a couple of anti-tanking ideas that have been floated over the years.

The best ideas would actually incentivize teams to contanstantly pursue improvement - even in the face of having to reload or rebuild.

My favorite concept makes it so no team is playing for their own draft position. Every team gets to bet on the future record of another team and then has their draft position tied directly to the win-loss record of that team. Two weeks before the start of the season (so after the draft, free agency, summer league and preseason) from worst record to best record, each team would pick the draft position of a team that they believe will be worse than them in the upcoming season.

Add some smoothing mechanisms to prevent major jumps or drops in the draft order, as well as limiting teams to one top 3 pick every three years; and a system like that should improve parity because your draft position is no longer based on your performance - it’s based on the performance of an opposing team.

You have no incentive to do poorly because it helps a competitor if that happens and they have no incentive to do poorly because it might help your team instead. Look at the Lakers and Nets this year. Neither of them is inclined to intentionally suck because it only helps the Cavs and 76ers if that happens. Neither team is particularly good, but they have no reason to do badly on purpose since they don’t keep the pick.

Plus, I think the drama of following the team whose draft position you do hold and actively rooting against them would add an intriguing wrinkle to the game.
 
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I like that idea. I wouldnt cap top 3 picks though otherwise you way as well use a rotating system (although that would require a 32yr investment)

Tanking is overblown anyway. Who cares? If we had gone that route this year Id be watching college prospects instead of following the NBA, no biggie.
 
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