The Ladies Got it Right

Chris Collymore
Aug 9, 2017 · 3 min read

“Ah change is good” — Rafiki from The Lion King

Anyone who watches the NBA has heard the aged old story that “the playoff format needs changed, too many teams out west don’t make the playoffs.”

“Eastern conference teams have an easier route to the finals than teams out west it’s not fair.”

These are all things that have been heard before and will continue to be brought up until a change is made.

The way the league is currently constructed there are 30 teams each split into two conferences of 15 each. The playoffs teams are selected each year in April with the eight teams from each conference making the playoffs for a grand total of 16 playoff teams.

The eight teams with the most overall wins and best winning percentage in each conference make the playoffs. Each conference then has three rounds to which will ultimately lead to the NBA Finals.

The last team left standing in each conference will then represent said conference in the NBA Finals to determine who will be crowned champion.

The NBA’s Western Conference has out played the Eastern Conference for over a decade now. Almost every season a team out west with a record above .500 is denied one of the eight playoff spots while a team with a sub .500 record in the east makes the playoffs.

Despite the this nearly yearly issue former league commissioner David Stern an now current commissioner Adam Silver have not felt the need to make a change.

The NBA executives do not feel a change is necessary despite the constant complaints from fans that the best teams do not get a chance to play one another in the playoffs.

However one league has shown the potential benefits of changing the current playoff format, the WNBA.

Last season the WNBA made a change to the leagues playoff format. Now the top eight teams in the league make the playoffs instead of four coming from each conference.

Prior to this change the WNBA playoffs were formatted the same as the NBA’s. The only difference being that four teams from each conference were selected for the playoffs rather than eight due to the WNBA having less teams than the NBA.

Now each the team with the best record plays the team from with the worst record and there’s reseeding after every round.

For example the one seed (team with the best record) would play the eight seed (team with the worst record). The two seed would play seven, three would play six and finally the four and five seed would play each other.

Then after each round the teams would be reseeded by record based on the remaining teams.

Now effective was the change is playoff format? To put it simply HUGE, the playoffs became much more competitive than years prior with the new playoff seeding.

In fact many would argue the 2016 NBA Finals were better than both the 2016 and 2017 NBA Finals.

The Minnesota Lynx played the Los Angeles Sparks in a very close on hard fought five game series last October.

Only one game in the WNBA Finals was decided by double digits which was game three, the Sparks defeated the Lynx 92–75 in Los Angeles.

The NBA Finals however have not been able to live up to this level of competitiveness over the past few seasons.

In the 12 Finals games played between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors over the past two seasons only three games have been decided by single digits.

While the NBA did set new records in ratings during these years Finals fans will begin to tune out if a more competitive product is not seen on the court.

The NBA league of executives have this debate every year, this season however might cause those talks to increase.

The additions of Paul George to the Oklahoma City Thunder and Chris Paul to the Houston Rockets are just a few changes out west that have made the conference even more dominant than it already was.

Now more than ever the NBA should consider a change. As Rafiki said change is good and if the NBA should consider and follow in the footsteps of its sister league the WNBA.

Chris Collymore

Written by

Lover of sports, hip-hop and PS1 classics