If NBA had a 16 team playoffs...

[Majestic Pape]

The travel schedule would still be stupid.

And the Heat would still win the championship anyway, so shyt would be pointless. In fact, I don't think this really changes the champion any year anyway; the best team is pretty much always going to win regardless. It'd just change who the runners up are.

 

[concise]

And you can still do that with a top 16 team format. Whatever east team is at home is the early game. Whatever west team is at home is the late game. What is so complex about that?

You only need to look back at the last couple of years where you’d have 6 or 7 of the top records coming from the West to see what would happen since top seeds open at home. And if you have 6 of the top 8 seeds, being from either East or West, you have problems when the top seeds open at home and the 3rd & 4th games.

 

[FTBS]

The travel schedule would still be stupid.

And the Heat would still win the championship anyway, so shyt would be pointless. In fact, I don't think this really changes the champion any year anyway; the best team is pretty much always going to win regardless. It'd just change who the runners up are.

I just think it would be interesting to see different matchups without both teams having to make the Finals. Certain teams are just bad matchups for other teams so you never know how things might shake out. Either way it would be fun to see.

 

[mastermind]

Would mid season tourneys work in the NBA? March Madness style single game elims?

I've advocated for something like this.

In soccer, they have open cups. The final match would be at a neutral court, etc.

There would be no seeding too.

 

[FTBS]

You only need to look back at the last couple of years where you’d have 6 or 7 of the top records coming from the West to see what would happen since top seeds open at home. And if you have 6 of the top 8 seeds, being from either East or West, you have problems when the top seeds open at home and the 3rd & 4th games.

First of all that's just not true.

Last year you had 4 of the top 8 teams recordwise from the East and it was even and 8 and 8 overall.

The year before you once again had 4 of the top 8 in the East and it was 7 and 9 overall. Nowhere near the landslide you are suggesting.

nikkas are stuck in 02. Ironically that was actually when it would have been most beneficial because you had teams barely making the playoffs or even missing the playoffs in the West with records that would've had them top 5 in the East. I remember the one year GS missed the playoffs with like 48 wins. That's bullshyt and there is no way that should ever be allowed to happen unless you have 16 teams with 49 or more wins or you cut the number of playoff teams.

Beyond that not every Western team plays in the same timezone. As a matter of fact the majority of teams (east or west) are in the Central or Eastern Timezones so often times you have teams playing at inconvenient times anyway. Some west teams might have to play a little earlier, some east teams might have to play a little later. It's really not the complicated though.