I would like to see best 16 teams period. If there's a play-in, only for teams over .500. Maybe if you reduce the schedule you can get closer to a balanced schedule and make that happen. Have every team play home and away, split East/West into two divisions and have those teams play one more home and home, seed top 4 division winners 1-4 and the remaining 12 by record.
I think that gets you around 72 games instead of 82, which might be enough of a reduction to end load management. Especially if you can make make travel more manageable in the process by having the divisional road trips all be two game stands and then maybe schedule the different divisions against each other in a way that has teams do a regional road trip and then a home stand.
I know it's gotta be doable even if it takes 2-3 years to get the arena schedules clear with shared events.