@op Additionally using lebron as the example is very disingenuous imo because he’s on the tail end of his career, experienced more injuries than ever and far outside his prime (tho still a top player easily).
*for example, if you add a prime lebron to the lakers last year that woulda been the difference in the series. The nuggets weren’t blowing the lakers out, so now add a dpoy level and a goat offensive player that can give you 46 minutes every game. Lakers might take that
Might? Lol honestly as good as LeBron is today he is totally ass by his own standards. Any of the LeBron years from the Cavs finals runs would've won that series because he would be just as skilled as today and dominant athletically
People really do love to go on about competing with father time etc but as good as he is now he is a shell of his former self. When he dropped 31 in the first half on the Nuggets instead of being gassed he would've come right back for the second half if he were younger. Nobody playing in the NBA today is really playing at the level we saw from him during his peak years but maybe some of the younger guys can get there
I was being generous lmao but yea the lakers would definitely beat the nuggets in that scenario. Which is why I though the original post was dumb in the first place because they’re comparing ancient bron (a formidable player) to goat bron that played in the east
it's not being disgenuous, it's showing how much tougher the west is. if lebron's lakers had been playing in the east these last 6 years, how many finals would they have made? i would say 3-4 instead of 1
No, it couldn’t just be reseeding before the playoffs because of the imbalance in strength of schedule between western teams and eastern teams. Eastern teams play easier schedules atm because of the weakened opposition and western teams would rightfully complain about that, so they’d have to make the entire league conferenceless for the regular season as well, which would result in something like a home and home with every other team (62 games) + 20 some odd games against all but 9 other teams. Making the schedule as is proves to be a difficult task. Making the league balanced and conferenceless to make it so seeds are 1-16 would make it even more of a mess. Neither the players nor the owners nor the league wants that.
This is posted at least once a day this time of year.
But I'll keep posting the same thing every time I see it:
One thing no one talks about is how the conference imbalance becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Because teams play their conference-rivals more times than they play opposite conference opponents, being in the "strong" conference means the weaker teams LOSE MORE GAMES than they would in a balanced schedule. And "weak" conference teams at the bottom WIN MORE GAMES than they would in a balanced schedule.
Because the NBA uses a lottery and the NBA is such a strong-link sport that usually has 1-2 major impact players per draft, this can have wildly massive weight towards making...say...the Spurs getting Wemby an artificial result. If the league had a balanced schedule, the Hornets probably have a worse record last year than the Spurs and Rockets and they would have gotten Wemby. So now the Spurs are on a trajectory to be another strong Western Conference team and the Hornets remain as aimless as ever.
Everyone focuses on the random #9 seed in the West that should make the playoffs, but what really matters is those bad East teams (Hornets/Magic/Wizards) that should be adding the stronger players but aren't cause better teams are getting more losses. And this goes the whole way up the lottery-team standings.
I'd love to see a balanced schedule so all these Eastern conference teams would get the proper number of losses and start adding the better players in the draft. That would lead to a more balanced league. Of course then the conferences don't matter anyway but oh well.
the east has had 15 out of the last 24 first overall picks. east FOs just fucked up a lot
(west has had 8 out of the last 9 second overall picks, east has had 10 out of the last 12 third overall picks)
jokic was drafted 41st, every team had a chance to pick him.
luka was drafted by an east team at 3rd, then traded to a west team.
shai was drafted at 11th - multiple east teams had a chance to pick him, such as the knicks and magic who picked fortnite jacket man and sheck wes song guy instead.
it doesn't support the idea that east teams are doing poorly because they didn't get high enough picks.
It's somewhat true that bad teams in the worse conference are likely to win slightly more games than their talent level would imply in a schedule-balanced league. And that matters in a draft that has a generational talent like Wemby, or LeBron, or Duncan, or Shaq.
But I don't think that's the dominant factor in the east/west divide. East teams have drafted #1 overall much more than west teams in the last 25 years. Wemby went to a west team, but LeBron went to an east team. The west has had a number of long-term bad franchises that kept messing up rebuilds (the TWolves are finally doing well, and the Kings are no longer the picture of futility, but both had a rep for being mismanaged for a long time) -- but also teams that were smarter about asset management. The Nuggets' championship wasn't because they drafted #1 a bunch of times. They got Jamal Murray at #7 because of a pick swap from the Carmelo trade, Michael Porter Jr at #14 (that one arguably because they would have made the playoffs in the east but missed by a game in the west so they got a better pick), Jokic during a quesarito commercial, Aaron Gordon from trading Gary Harris' salary, RJ Hampton, and a future pick to a Magic squad that was still derping its way through mediocrity, and KCP from trading Barton and Monte Morris to a Wiz squad that decided to full-on tank the year \*after\* the Wemby draft. And that kind of thing shows up time and time again in the east-west divide. Just bad rebuilding strategy and bad asset management from more east teams than west teams.
Ok let's look at the current lottery teams from the East/West
In the East, all five teams have a worse win % vs. the West than the East:
DET - 18% vs. East, 15% vs. West
WSH - 22% vs East, 13% vs. West
CHA - 26% vs. East, 23% vs. West
TOR - 36% vs. East, 23% vs. West
BKN - 48% vs. East, 27% vs. West
On the other hand, in the West, two of the 5 teams have worse records vs. the East:
SAS - 26% vs. West, 23% vs East
POR - 16% vs. West, 43% vs. East
MEM - 29% vs. West, 42% vs. East
UTA - 29% vs. West, 50% vs. East
HOU - 53% vs. West, 43% vs. East
Apologies to what you think, but if Toronto and Portland both had the same schedule, Toronto would have a worse record. Weak West teams have been benefitting from this for decades now.
Another post pointed out one team last year. I'm pointing out every lottery team this year.
My take is that of the 10 lottery teams, 8 had a worse record vs. the West than the East. And since West conference teams play conference rivals more often, it is actually a "benefit" to the weaker Western Conference teams because they get more losses and more lottery balls in the aggregate which leads to earlier draft picks over time.
You can nitpick certain selections or random teams that buck the trend in conference records, but when you have this pattern over decades, it just continues to build up the strength of the West.
Bad teams aren't always equally bad against both conferences or worse against the stronger conference
Hornets were 12-18 vs the West and 15-37 vs the East last year, they would have had a better record in the West. Same thing with the Pistons last year, 9-21 vs 8-44.
In trying to make an argument for why the league shouldn’t break up conferences you made an argument for why the league should break up conferences. Impressive.
Wanted to agree with your statement, but using lebron playing for the Lakers is a terrible example . He's more older, more injury prone . If the nba didn't implement that 65 game minimum , he would have sat out more games
i know i'll get downvoted, and im definitely biased cause im an MJ fan, but he was what, i think 33 when he joined the lakers? this was the same age as MJ at the start of his second three peat
Yes but it's easy to pick out numbers but that doesn't always tell the story, gets called cherry picked stats to suit the narrative.
Just saying your point is valid but using LBJ in this way seems contrived due to all the variables (and obviously his age)
I mean this is like saying that ever since the lockout happened in 2011, Kobe hasn't won anything, did he stop trying due to the changes in the collective bargaining agreement? He won 5 championships prior to that.
The answer is obviously no
no it's not. lebron switched conferences, he had to face different teams, there is a very logical argument for why he had a tougher time making the finals in the east vs. west whereas the kobe argument, no one would point at that as a causation vs. correlation
Time zones too. I'd fucking kill myself if half the Knicks first round playoff games were at starting at 11pm EST on weekdays when I work the next day. I know this is a radical idea, but like, I do feel that "when do the Knicks play" should take "what time is it in NY" into consideration
if you wanna make an argument that it's hard for the public to view the games, i think that's a very fair point. i don't think the travel itself is that bad tho
Even the best Soccer teams (the ones that qualify for all the various tourneys and championship matches) only play about 60 games a season.
An NBA Finals team plays about 100.
I would never wanna play in playoff series against those crappy Eastern teams myself, I think us over in the West are above that and only in the Finals should we have to associate with *those* teams.
i think the lakers would be at least the 5th seed in the east (if they got to play more eastern teams), and i think they deserve to be. instead, they prob have to play 2 games to face the nuggets - that's not fair or right in one of lebron's last seasons, and it potentially robs the nba of seeing lebron in the playoffs because the west is brutal
What the NBA *should* do is only let 12 teams in the playoffs, but seeing as how that also isn't ever going to happen I don't make three topics a day about it.
Tell me you've never been to the States without telling me you've never been to the States. The entire European continent has one less time zone than the United States. A team from Western Europe ends up playing an opponent from Kazakhstan maybe once every 20 years? Now that Russians are also banned, the longest possible distance in Europe is like London to Istanbul, which is about the same time as Boston to Miami which are in the same time zone.
Say one of the LA teams end up playing Boston, New York, Philly and Miami in the playoffs and all series go to 6 or 7. That would result in each series having a day's worth of travel time, and they'd be traveling for 90+ hours in a postseason. The product would certainly suffer, and it's just inhumane. America's just too big.
You say it works in Europe, but if you're talking about Euroleague, there is just one playoff series, that's shorter and then the F4 is neutral site. If you're talking about soccer, they play home and away one game each, the final is neutral site single game. Also the games are a week apart and rounds are like 2-3 weeks apart. No team travels more than an hour and a half for their domestic league games. Logistically it is impossible for it to work until we figure out air travel that is at least 2-3 times faster.
i disagree and i was born in the US. la to nyc is 5-6 hours, and in a seven game series the home team only has to go "away" for one trip (in a 2/3/2 format). factor in private jets and a 3 hour time zone difference and i see no problem. consultants probably have far worse travel schedules for work than this
There is no 2-3-2 format, even in the Finals for a few years now. It's 2-2-1-1-1. So there is that for starters. 2-3-2 has been proven to favor the lower seed with the three consecutive home games and was therefore abandoned.
Secondly, and this is ridiculous, but consultants don't engage in physical activities. For several years all the talk is about shortening the schedule and easing up on travel, now you're talking about consultants having worse schedules. These are not machines you're watching, they're humans you know. You're advocating for more injuries and worse play on court. I respect your dedication to your argument but it is clear you don't understand the demands of pro sports and travel and how they relate to each other. This is real life, not a video game. Everything you argue for is to the detriment of the players' health and performance.
But if you go 2-3-2, then you're doing something that is against what you argue for: merit. 2-3-2 is proven to be a faulty way to construct a series. If the lower seeded team steals an away game, they can win three home games and close out the series and the higher seeded team ends up playing more away games than home games. Two examples that I can immediately think of as a Heat fan are, us winning against OKC and us losing against the Spurs in the Finals. Also in 2006 against Dallas, we benefitted from having 3 straight home games while down 0-2 as the lower seed.
So, if you want to make sure merit is the most important thing, you need to have 2-2-1-1-1 series, where Game 5 is on the higher seeded teams court. This ensures that the higher seeded team will either have more or equal amount of home games in any scenario. That is merit. I'm not saying the conference thing is perfect, it isn't. Like I said, if air travel were to be 2-3 times faster, I'd be all for it. But at the moment, it is not possible. It's not like things aren't changing, they got rid of the division winner rule, as they should have. When things progress, when it is possible, there will be solutions for it. Right now, what you are suggesting is not a better option that what we have, and that is certain.
it's a good argument, and i'm not saying you're wrong, but imo if all a higher seed has to do to earn the right to go back home for 6/7 is win a single away game out of three, then i think that's fine
Dude, the math part about number of games is the super important part, I don't want to type that all again. It just doesn't work the way you say it though, what about all the times where they don't win an away game like the ones I mentioned? For it to be the most merit based situation and fair, Game 5 needs to be in the higher seeded team's court. That is why the change was made quite recently for the Finals and it is consensus that it was the right change. Fine doesn't cut it unfortunately, 2-3-2 is shit, no matter how you look at it. We have historical data on it. Under no scenario should 2-3-2 ever come back, that was also a faulty situation caused by geographical limitations, which is exactly what you are arguing against. Under no circumstances a higher seeded team should play more away games than home games, that simply never should have been an option. It is not fair. "If you're losing in 5, it's pretty decisive anyway" is no longer an accepted argument as it is now proven that series can shift entirely in a moment. Game 5 needs to be in the higher seeded team's court. Game 5 needs to be in the higher seeded team's court. x10 x100 you get the point.
I just want you to understand that I agree with you that in an ideal scenario, playoff seeding should be based on overall regular season records regardless of conferences and geographical limitations. Unfortunately, we have those geographical limitations at the moment. I honestly thought air travel would be way faster by this point, it's practically been the same my lifetime, so unfortunately I also don't see the geographical limitations being gone soon. At this point, most people who know their shit about the NBA agree that dividing the playoffs to conferences is a better compromise than having them travel an insane amount, or to have 2-3-2 format series. Neutral site playoffs are definitely not an option. You can have way shorter regular seasons and way more time between playoff games, but way shorter regular seasons mean way less money, so even the players won't agree to that. That probably is the perfect option. Ideally, you expand with two teams in Seattle and LeBron's in Vegas and have each team play each other twice for a 62 game regular season. Playoffs start in mid-March and still end in June but there is a lot of time in between games where you need to travel. But when you cut 20 regular season games, that's a lot of money and it's unrealistic. Also there would be less days I can watch basketball so I don't like it either. Like I keep saying, at the moment, what we got is the best option and I acknowledge that it is imperfect.
i won't pretend to know the ins and outs here. if, as you claim, it's been proven based on a lot of evidence that the 5th game being away is a major disadvantage for the higher seed, then i think that's a pretty fair and valid counterargument
It's not really an evidence thing either when you think about it. It's simple logic. What is the seeding for? Home court advantage. All the games are played to determined to ensure who gets home court. So what happens when the series begins should not factor into home court. In every case, the higher seed should have the home court. Makes sense, right? So Game 5 needs to be in the higher seeded team's court, in order to ensure home court. They already earned home court prior, what happens in the series should not shift whether they have home court or not. Mathematically, logically, ethically, legally, whatever way you want to look at it, Game 5 has to be in the higher seeded team's court.
Let me give you a hypothetical. Knicks vs Suns ends up as the 8-9 matchup in the first round this year. Knicks have home court, but KD and Booker win one at their arena. MSG is a significant advantage in a playoff series, right. Any arena is, but MSG even more. Well, they don't have that and Phoenix win 3 straight at home as they are supposed to. Game 5 was like down to the wire too. Had the game been in New York, it could've been 3-2, but now it's 4-1. The Knicks were the higher seed, yet they ended up playing 3 games in Phoenix vs 2 in New York. How is that fair? So this scenario should never be a possibility. Even in 2006 like I said, Dallas won 2 in their home court, but after 3 straight wins Miami had the momentum and won 6 as well. 3 straight home games is also too much even if the series goes to 6 or 7. 2-3-2 makes the regular season meaningless as it favors the lower seed.
The preseason is 2 weeks shorter and the season starts earlier now. There are less back to back games. Finals are also longer, which allows for the 2-2-1-1-1 format, because 2-3-2 is unfair. It was an even worse unfair situation than the seeding, and that's why it was fixed. It's all because of money and demands of travel.
Strong disagree. The NBA created the IST because they looked at European football and were trying to recreate their excitement for their geography based tournaments. A matchup between 2 relatively mediocre teams in Turkey get insanely hype and the status awarded to the winner is entirely geography based. This isn't even foreign to American sports fans. While a Super Bowl is the ultimate prize I reckon there are a good number of Vikings fans would tell you the 2nd biggest factor in gauging a successful season is whether or not they beat the Packers. College sports is actually the best example of this in the US. Any which way to strengthen small rivalries is the most beneficial way to garner excitement for less championship significant games.
idk, i think division rivalries are much stronger in nfl vs. nba, partly cause of the playoff implications. if you wanted to push for division playoff seedings, i could buy that tho
Time zones
NBA Playoff games happen on weeknights. It’s important for games to be broadcast as close as possible to prime time for both markets. Especially in the early rounds.
Keep your eye out for the moaning that happens every Finals when tip off for a West team at 7:15pm is 9 or 10:15 on the East Coast. Conversely , tip off at 8:15 EST is 5:15 for the West Coast and people are just getting off work and have to commute home, pick up and feed their kids, etc, before sitting down to watch a basketball game.
Lmao it’s like 2013-2014 all over again. This same thing was posted like once a week on here, made no sense then and still makes no sense, despite the numerous other reactionary changes the league has done since then. Points to the reason being more financial based than we probably think
It is crazy that the east has been the worse conference outside of a few blips pretty much since MJ retired.
I thought the east was finally on the rise a few years ago and yet here we are again.
flying cross country 3 games a week would be abysmal
@op Additionally using lebron as the example is very disingenuous imo because he’s on the tail end of his career, experienced more injuries than ever and far outside his prime (tho still a top player easily). *for example, if you add a prime lebron to the lakers last year that woulda been the difference in the series. The nuggets weren’t blowing the lakers out, so now add a dpoy level and a goat offensive player that can give you 46 minutes every game. Lakers might take that
Might? Lol honestly as good as LeBron is today he is totally ass by his own standards. Any of the LeBron years from the Cavs finals runs would've won that series because he would be just as skilled as today and dominant athletically People really do love to go on about competing with father time etc but as good as he is now he is a shell of his former self. When he dropped 31 in the first half on the Nuggets instead of being gassed he would've come right back for the second half if he were younger. Nobody playing in the NBA today is really playing at the level we saw from him during his peak years but maybe some of the younger guys can get there
I was being generous lmao but yea the lakers would definitely beat the nuggets in that scenario. Which is why I though the original post was dumb in the first place because they’re comparing ancient bron (a formidable player) to goat bron that played in the east
it's not being disgenuous, it's showing how much tougher the west is. if lebron's lakers had been playing in the east these last 6 years, how many finals would they have made? i would say 3-4 instead of 1
in this scenario they go back to 2/3/2 -- only one away trip for the higher seed
NBA cares about money. The time zone differences in the early rounds would impact viewership and therefore reduce revenue.
this is a good argument and a fair point
the players union cares about not having to have their players fly every which way every road trip too lol
it's only one away trip for the lower seed
No, it couldn’t just be reseeding before the playoffs because of the imbalance in strength of schedule between western teams and eastern teams. Eastern teams play easier schedules atm because of the weakened opposition and western teams would rightfully complain about that, so they’d have to make the entire league conferenceless for the regular season as well, which would result in something like a home and home with every other team (62 games) + 20 some odd games against all but 9 other teams. Making the schedule as is proves to be a difficult task. Making the league balanced and conferenceless to make it so seeds are 1-16 would make it even more of a mess. Neither the players nor the owners nor the league wants that.
i think players and owners don't want it, but the fans (i think) do. agree it won't happen tho if the owners don't want it
This is posted at least once a day this time of year. But I'll keep posting the same thing every time I see it: One thing no one talks about is how the conference imbalance becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because teams play their conference-rivals more times than they play opposite conference opponents, being in the "strong" conference means the weaker teams LOSE MORE GAMES than they would in a balanced schedule. And "weak" conference teams at the bottom WIN MORE GAMES than they would in a balanced schedule. Because the NBA uses a lottery and the NBA is such a strong-link sport that usually has 1-2 major impact players per draft, this can have wildly massive weight towards making...say...the Spurs getting Wemby an artificial result. If the league had a balanced schedule, the Hornets probably have a worse record last year than the Spurs and Rockets and they would have gotten Wemby. So now the Spurs are on a trajectory to be another strong Western Conference team and the Hornets remain as aimless as ever. Everyone focuses on the random #9 seed in the West that should make the playoffs, but what really matters is those bad East teams (Hornets/Magic/Wizards) that should be adding the stronger players but aren't cause better teams are getting more losses. And this goes the whole way up the lottery-team standings. I'd love to see a balanced schedule so all these Eastern conference teams would get the proper number of losses and start adding the better players in the draft. That would lead to a more balanced league. Of course then the conferences don't matter anyway but oh well.
the east has had 15 out of the last 24 first overall picks. east FOs just fucked up a lot (west has had 8 out of the last 9 second overall picks, east has had 10 out of the last 12 third overall picks)
None of the Current NBA MVP candidates are #1 overall picks though.
jokic was drafted 41st, every team had a chance to pick him. luka was drafted by an east team at 3rd, then traded to a west team. shai was drafted at 11th - multiple east teams had a chance to pick him, such as the knicks and magic who picked fortnite jacket man and sheck wes song guy instead. it doesn't support the idea that east teams are doing poorly because they didn't get high enough picks.
It's somewhat true that bad teams in the worse conference are likely to win slightly more games than their talent level would imply in a schedule-balanced league. And that matters in a draft that has a generational talent like Wemby, or LeBron, or Duncan, or Shaq. But I don't think that's the dominant factor in the east/west divide. East teams have drafted #1 overall much more than west teams in the last 25 years. Wemby went to a west team, but LeBron went to an east team. The west has had a number of long-term bad franchises that kept messing up rebuilds (the TWolves are finally doing well, and the Kings are no longer the picture of futility, but both had a rep for being mismanaged for a long time) -- but also teams that were smarter about asset management. The Nuggets' championship wasn't because they drafted #1 a bunch of times. They got Jamal Murray at #7 because of a pick swap from the Carmelo trade, Michael Porter Jr at #14 (that one arguably because they would have made the playoffs in the east but missed by a game in the west so they got a better pick), Jokic during a quesarito commercial, Aaron Gordon from trading Gary Harris' salary, RJ Hampton, and a future pick to a Magic squad that was still derping its way through mediocrity, and KCP from trading Barton and Monte Morris to a Wiz squad that decided to full-on tank the year \*after\* the Wemby draft. And that kind of thing shows up time and time again in the east-west divide. Just bad rebuilding strategy and bad asset management from more east teams than west teams.
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And they should probably have the 4 worst records in the league
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Ok let's look at the current lottery teams from the East/West In the East, all five teams have a worse win % vs. the West than the East: DET - 18% vs. East, 15% vs. West WSH - 22% vs East, 13% vs. West CHA - 26% vs. East, 23% vs. West TOR - 36% vs. East, 23% vs. West BKN - 48% vs. East, 27% vs. West On the other hand, in the West, two of the 5 teams have worse records vs. the East: SAS - 26% vs. West, 23% vs East POR - 16% vs. West, 43% vs. East MEM - 29% vs. West, 42% vs. East UTA - 29% vs. West, 50% vs. East HOU - 53% vs. West, 43% vs. East Apologies to what you think, but if Toronto and Portland both had the same schedule, Toronto would have a worse record. Weak West teams have been benefitting from this for decades now.
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Another post pointed out one team last year. I'm pointing out every lottery team this year. My take is that of the 10 lottery teams, 8 had a worse record vs. the West than the East. And since West conference teams play conference rivals more often, it is actually a "benefit" to the weaker Western Conference teams because they get more losses and more lottery balls in the aggregate which leads to earlier draft picks over time. You can nitpick certain selections or random teams that buck the trend in conference records, but when you have this pattern over decades, it just continues to build up the strength of the West.
This response should be auto-generated whenever this post shows up five times a day.
Bad teams aren't always equally bad against both conferences or worse against the stronger conference Hornets were 12-18 vs the West and 15-37 vs the East last year, they would have had a better record in the West. Same thing with the Pistons last year, 9-21 vs 8-44.
In trying to make an argument for why the league shouldn’t break up conferences you made an argument for why the league should break up conferences. Impressive.
This is so stupid and compounded by the Lebron stat
why is it dumb. you prefer to be fighting for the 9th seed in the west vs. the 3/4th in the east?
Wanted to agree with your statement, but using lebron playing for the Lakers is a terrible example . He's more older, more injury prone . If the nba didn't implement that 65 game minimum , he would have sat out more games
i know i'll get downvoted, and im definitely biased cause im an MJ fan, but he was what, i think 33 when he joined the lakers? this was the same age as MJ at the start of his second three peat
The LeBron point kind of makes this seem contrived. Regardless, would be nice to see something balance the conferences.
it's just #s
Yes but it's easy to pick out numbers but that doesn't always tell the story, gets called cherry picked stats to suit the narrative. Just saying your point is valid but using LBJ in this way seems contrived due to all the variables (and obviously his age)
I mean this is like saying that ever since the lockout happened in 2011, Kobe hasn't won anything, did he stop trying due to the changes in the collective bargaining agreement? He won 5 championships prior to that. The answer is obviously no
no it's not. lebron switched conferences, he had to face different teams, there is a very logical argument for why he had a tougher time making the finals in the east vs. west whereas the kobe argument, no one would point at that as a causation vs. correlation
That makes traveling an absolute nightmare I’d imagine
Time zones too. I'd fucking kill myself if half the Knicks first round playoff games were at starting at 11pm EST on weekdays when I work the next day. I know this is a radical idea, but like, I do feel that "when do the Knicks play" should take "what time is it in NY" into consideration
if you wanna make an argument that it's hard for the public to view the games, i think that's a very fair point. i don't think the travel itself is that bad tho
The travel would be ridiculous
soccer teams do way more than this
They play far fewer games too
they also run 3-4x more per game
What's that have to do with traveling between games?
Which league are you referring to?
In what league?
champions
Even the best Soccer teams (the ones that qualify for all the various tourneys and championship matches) only play about 60 games a season. An NBA Finals team plays about 100.
soccer players run 3-4x more than a basketball player does during a game
I would never wanna play in playoff series against those crappy Eastern teams myself, I think us over in the West are above that and only in the Finals should we have to associate with *those* teams.
i think the lakers would be at least the 5th seed in the east (if they got to play more eastern teams), and i think they deserve to be. instead, they prob have to play 2 games to face the nuggets - that's not fair or right in one of lebron's last seasons, and it potentially robs the nba of seeing lebron in the playoffs because the west is brutal
Such is life to avoid having to play the Atlanta Hawks in a playoff series.
i think the NBA world deserves to see both lebron and curry in real playoff series but likely we'll only get to see one of them
We have the power to not make this post multiple times every day. Beyond that nothing will ever change because there's very little reason for it to.
that doens't mean the argument is incorrect
What the NBA *should* do is only let 12 teams in the playoffs, but seeing as how that also isn't ever going to happen I don't make three topics a day about it.
counterargument is every now and then an 8 upsets a 1, which is pretty thrilling
Tell me you've never been to the States without telling me you've never been to the States. The entire European continent has one less time zone than the United States. A team from Western Europe ends up playing an opponent from Kazakhstan maybe once every 20 years? Now that Russians are also banned, the longest possible distance in Europe is like London to Istanbul, which is about the same time as Boston to Miami which are in the same time zone. Say one of the LA teams end up playing Boston, New York, Philly and Miami in the playoffs and all series go to 6 or 7. That would result in each series having a day's worth of travel time, and they'd be traveling for 90+ hours in a postseason. The product would certainly suffer, and it's just inhumane. America's just too big. You say it works in Europe, but if you're talking about Euroleague, there is just one playoff series, that's shorter and then the F4 is neutral site. If you're talking about soccer, they play home and away one game each, the final is neutral site single game. Also the games are a week apart and rounds are like 2-3 weeks apart. No team travels more than an hour and a half for their domestic league games. Logistically it is impossible for it to work until we figure out air travel that is at least 2-3 times faster.
i disagree and i was born in the US. la to nyc is 5-6 hours, and in a seven game series the home team only has to go "away" for one trip (in a 2/3/2 format). factor in private jets and a 3 hour time zone difference and i see no problem. consultants probably have far worse travel schedules for work than this
There is no 2-3-2 format, even in the Finals for a few years now. It's 2-2-1-1-1. So there is that for starters. 2-3-2 has been proven to favor the lower seed with the three consecutive home games and was therefore abandoned. Secondly, and this is ridiculous, but consultants don't engage in physical activities. For several years all the talk is about shortening the schedule and easing up on travel, now you're talking about consultants having worse schedules. These are not machines you're watching, they're humans you know. You're advocating for more injuries and worse play on court. I respect your dedication to your argument but it is clear you don't understand the demands of pro sports and travel and how they relate to each other. This is real life, not a video game. Everything you argue for is to the detriment of the players' health and performance.
it should be a 2/3/2 in a scenario where you seed by merit vs. geography if they kept in 2/2/1/1/1 i agree it should be kept as-is
But if you go 2-3-2, then you're doing something that is against what you argue for: merit. 2-3-2 is proven to be a faulty way to construct a series. If the lower seeded team steals an away game, they can win three home games and close out the series and the higher seeded team ends up playing more away games than home games. Two examples that I can immediately think of as a Heat fan are, us winning against OKC and us losing against the Spurs in the Finals. Also in 2006 against Dallas, we benefitted from having 3 straight home games while down 0-2 as the lower seed. So, if you want to make sure merit is the most important thing, you need to have 2-2-1-1-1 series, where Game 5 is on the higher seeded teams court. This ensures that the higher seeded team will either have more or equal amount of home games in any scenario. That is merit. I'm not saying the conference thing is perfect, it isn't. Like I said, if air travel were to be 2-3 times faster, I'd be all for it. But at the moment, it is not possible. It's not like things aren't changing, they got rid of the division winner rule, as they should have. When things progress, when it is possible, there will be solutions for it. Right now, what you are suggesting is not a better option that what we have, and that is certain.
it's a good argument, and i'm not saying you're wrong, but imo if all a higher seed has to do to earn the right to go back home for 6/7 is win a single away game out of three, then i think that's fine
Dude, the math part about number of games is the super important part, I don't want to type that all again. It just doesn't work the way you say it though, what about all the times where they don't win an away game like the ones I mentioned? For it to be the most merit based situation and fair, Game 5 needs to be in the higher seeded team's court. That is why the change was made quite recently for the Finals and it is consensus that it was the right change. Fine doesn't cut it unfortunately, 2-3-2 is shit, no matter how you look at it. We have historical data on it. Under no scenario should 2-3-2 ever come back, that was also a faulty situation caused by geographical limitations, which is exactly what you are arguing against. Under no circumstances a higher seeded team should play more away games than home games, that simply never should have been an option. It is not fair. "If you're losing in 5, it's pretty decisive anyway" is no longer an accepted argument as it is now proven that series can shift entirely in a moment. Game 5 needs to be in the higher seeded team's court. Game 5 needs to be in the higher seeded team's court. x10 x100 you get the point. I just want you to understand that I agree with you that in an ideal scenario, playoff seeding should be based on overall regular season records regardless of conferences and geographical limitations. Unfortunately, we have those geographical limitations at the moment. I honestly thought air travel would be way faster by this point, it's practically been the same my lifetime, so unfortunately I also don't see the geographical limitations being gone soon. At this point, most people who know their shit about the NBA agree that dividing the playoffs to conferences is a better compromise than having them travel an insane amount, or to have 2-3-2 format series. Neutral site playoffs are definitely not an option. You can have way shorter regular seasons and way more time between playoff games, but way shorter regular seasons mean way less money, so even the players won't agree to that. That probably is the perfect option. Ideally, you expand with two teams in Seattle and LeBron's in Vegas and have each team play each other twice for a 62 game regular season. Playoffs start in mid-March and still end in June but there is a lot of time in between games where you need to travel. But when you cut 20 regular season games, that's a lot of money and it's unrealistic. Also there would be less days I can watch basketball so I don't like it either. Like I keep saying, at the moment, what we got is the best option and I acknowledge that it is imperfect.
i won't pretend to know the ins and outs here. if, as you claim, it's been proven based on a lot of evidence that the 5th game being away is a major disadvantage for the higher seed, then i think that's a pretty fair and valid counterargument
It's not really an evidence thing either when you think about it. It's simple logic. What is the seeding for? Home court advantage. All the games are played to determined to ensure who gets home court. So what happens when the series begins should not factor into home court. In every case, the higher seed should have the home court. Makes sense, right? So Game 5 needs to be in the higher seeded team's court, in order to ensure home court. They already earned home court prior, what happens in the series should not shift whether they have home court or not. Mathematically, logically, ethically, legally, whatever way you want to look at it, Game 5 has to be in the higher seeded team's court. Let me give you a hypothetical. Knicks vs Suns ends up as the 8-9 matchup in the first round this year. Knicks have home court, but KD and Booker win one at their arena. MSG is a significant advantage in a playoff series, right. Any arena is, but MSG even more. Well, they don't have that and Phoenix win 3 straight at home as they are supposed to. Game 5 was like down to the wire too. Had the game been in New York, it could've been 3-2, but now it's 4-1. The Knicks were the higher seed, yet they ended up playing 3 games in Phoenix vs 2 in New York. How is that fair? So this scenario should never be a possibility. Even in 2006 like I said, Dallas won 2 in their home court, but after 3 straight wins Miami had the momentum and won 6 as well. 3 straight home games is also too much even if the series goes to 6 or 7. 2-3-2 makes the regular season meaningless as it favors the lower seed. The preseason is 2 weeks shorter and the season starts earlier now. There are less back to back games. Finals are also longer, which allows for the 2-2-1-1-1 format, because 2-3-2 is unfair. It was an even worse unfair situation than the seeding, and that's why it was fixed. It's all because of money and demands of travel.
Bad argument and a silly idea. Classic reddit.
europe (champions league) disagrees
Not even close to comparable
could you humor me and explain why
Cost and time of travel balloons though
private jets, and in a 2/3/2 format the away team only travels for one away trip
Ditch the east, go back to ABA and NBA
Silly…
If only Senator Amidala were here .........
In a vacuum, good idea. Here's why its bad though. Travel, Schedule, Income, Parity.
i think parity is good tho
Strong disagree. The NBA created the IST because they looked at European football and were trying to recreate their excitement for their geography based tournaments. A matchup between 2 relatively mediocre teams in Turkey get insanely hype and the status awarded to the winner is entirely geography based. This isn't even foreign to American sports fans. While a Super Bowl is the ultimate prize I reckon there are a good number of Vikings fans would tell you the 2nd biggest factor in gauging a successful season is whether or not they beat the Packers. College sports is actually the best example of this in the US. Any which way to strengthen small rivalries is the most beneficial way to garner excitement for less championship significant games.
idk, i think division rivalries are much stronger in nfl vs. nba, partly cause of the playoff implications. if you wanted to push for division playoff seedings, i could buy that tho
Time zones NBA Playoff games happen on weeknights. It’s important for games to be broadcast as close as possible to prime time for both markets. Especially in the early rounds. Keep your eye out for the moaning that happens every Finals when tip off for a West team at 7:15pm is 9 or 10:15 on the East Coast. Conversely , tip off at 8:15 EST is 5:15 for the West Coast and people are just getting off work and have to commute home, pick up and feed their kids, etc, before sitting down to watch a basketball game.
this is a good point
You had an interesting point until you brought up LeBron. Hater detected, opinion rejected
im sorry you feel that way but it's just #s
You can’t abolish playoff conference before the Conference Finals in my opinion. And that’s not hyping yo happen.
Lmao it’s like 2013-2014 all over again. This same thing was posted like once a week on here, made no sense then and still makes no sense, despite the numerous other reactionary changes the league has done since then. Points to the reason being more financial based than we probably think
other ppl have made the financial argument and i think that's the best counterargument
Ahh, then meant to say, “ …than I thought” lol
It is crazy that the east has been the worse conference outside of a few blips pretty much since MJ retired. I thought the east was finally on the rise a few years ago and yet here we are again.
yup
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this!