While 'unlikely,' NBA to discuss possible changes to playoff format

[Warhawk]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3370773

After another season of great imbalance between teams in the West and East, NBA officials are pledging to consider changes to the playoff format -- ranging from small to radical -- that could be implemented in time for next season's playoffs.
But the most likely scenario, according to various league sources, is no change to the current format.
NBA commissioner David Stern echoed that view Friday night when speaking to reporters in Philadelphia before the 76ers played Detroit, saying: "Although I think it's unlikely anything will happen, I think we're going to explore it fully."

The current system sends the top eight teams in each conference to the postseason, which excluded Golden State in spite of the Warriors' 48-win season and has forced two 55-win title contenders -- San Antonio and Phoenix -- to meet in the first round out West.

more....

 

[fnordius]

Hmmm...

Considering the closest thing to an upset so far has been #7 Philly going 2-2 against #2 Detroit, I have a hard time getting very worked up about either changing it much or leaving it the same. I'm sure that GS fans are bummed that Atlanta is getting blown out instead of their Warriors, but first round upsets don't happen very often, and when they do, the winning team rarely runs into as favorable a mismatch in any later round.

In other words, I don't think it matters much. I think of the first round as something the NBA uses to try to keep as many fans interested as possible, not as something which gives teams like Atlanta or GS a shot at the title. Because, realistically, their chances barely squeak above zero anyway.

 

[Gargamel]

They've changed the format 3x since 2003. Unlikely, hm...

 

[Warhawk]

Just throwing out ideas here, but what about the top 4 (or 6) teams from each conference automatically in (one from each division plus the team with the best conference record otherwise, etc.) and the other 8 (or 4) from the best regular season records overall?

 

[fnordius]

Hey! Here's a thought...

Instead, maybe they could spend some time figuring out why the EC sucks, and start fixing it. A more level playing field, in any of a number of ways, might make a lot of fans happy.

But does Stern care much about making fans happy?

Just throwing out ideas here, but what about the top 4 (or 6) teams from each conference automatically in (one from each division plus the team with the best conference record otherwise, etc.) and the other 8 (or 4) from the best regular season records overall?

It wouldn't surprise me if they came up with a compromise like that. Whatever they do, they'll either alienate Easterners, or they'll alienate fans of also-ran Western teams. There's only so much pie to go around.

 

[Warhawk]

Hey! Here's a thought...

Instead, maybe they could spend some time figuring out why the EC sucks, and start fixing it. A more level playing field, in any of a number of ways, might make a lot of fans happy.

But does Stern care much about making fans happy?

How can you "fix" a weaker conference? It's free-market to go after players....

 

[fnordius]

How can you "fix" a weaker conference? It's free-market to go after players....

I don't have a quick and easy answer, obviously you can't totally idiot-proof any sport, but there are sure things you can do which even things out, or the opposite. Like how we've had only 6 franchises win titles in 21 years, while 13 different NFL teams have won the Super Bowl during that period, 13 teams different have won the World Series, and 13 teams have won the Stanley Cup. There must be factors at work which make the NBA different, and I could point to some things in the CBA, for example, which have helped ensure that 80% of the league would not see a ring for decades. The sad thing is that Stern seems to like it that way, MJ got him addicted to the money that can generate.

I suspect that the NBA could take action to equalize things in a number of different ways, I just don't think they're interested in doing it.

 

[Gargamel]

I don't have a quick and easy answer, obviously you can't totally idiot-proof any sport, but there are sure things you can do which even things out, or the opposite. Like how we've had only 6 franchises win titles in 21 years, while 13 different NFL teams have won the Super Bowl during that period, 13 teams different have won the World Series, and 13 teams have won the Stanley Cup. There must be factors at work which make the NBA different, and I could point to some things in the CBA, for example, which have helped ensure that 80% of the league would not see a ring for decades. The sad thing is that Stern seems to like it that way, MJ got him addicted to the money that can generate.

I suspect that the NBA could take action to equalize things in a number of different ways, I just don't think they're interested in doing it.

What's your take on the CBA as the cause?

I think stars have more impact in the NBA than any other major sport. Barry Bonds has only so much effect on a World Series game. MJ, otoh, can kill you all night. There's probably only 1 team in 50 years to win a title w/o what one might consider a borderline superstar (79 Sonics), and the only other debatable cases are found in the 1970s. The likelihood of a superstar winning a title is increased when he has another star too. Magic and Bird had an embarrassment of wealth. Duncan has had less than those two, but more than most teams. Shaq and Kobe had each other. I don't think it's any surprise those guys have taken so many titles over the last 25 yrs.

 

[fnordius]

What's your take on the CBA as the cause?

I think that the CBA is only one part of the equation, but to take one really obvious example, if a franchise has a roster full of garbage, it's just too bad for them until a bunch of contracts enter their final year. In other sports, if you're paying someone $20M a year, and he's a locker room cancer who plays like crap, you just fire him. In the NBA, you become the Knicks instead. Or the "we're on hold until 2011" Kings.

That's not to say that the NBA should provide no job security at all, but some sort of compromise would be very helpful, I think.

I also think that pay is way out of hand, insofar as it forces owners to do things like demand arenas costing upwards of half a billion dollars. That can make life very hard for smaller market teams like Charlotte, Seattle/OKC and Sac. I'd like to see a lower and harder cap for that reason. If you have 12,000 fans showing up every night, at $30 a head, you shouldn't be facing bankruptcy or a forced move. And there are a lot of metropolitan areas in the US which can't really do better than that, especially with the economy hurting. Hard to see any reason why we should be paying players more than a small premium over what they'd get playing in Europe. Having an NBA player, in a 13 year career, be able to make over a quarter of a billion dollars is absolutely ludicrous. The highest paid basketball player in Europe, Theodoros Papaloukas, playing for a huge market team (Moscow), makes 3M Euros a year (about $4M). Do we really need to pay our players six times as much?

I could go on, but you get the general idea.

 

[VF21]

My biggest gripe is that some of the games are on NBA-TV, and they're expecting people who don't get it for free to pony up more money for it.

It's one thing to have the games on ESPN and TNT, which are included in pretty much every basic package I can think of. It's another thing entirely to put the games on a second-tier channel. Since NBA-TV is part of League Pass, I don't understand why they're restricting it in the post-season. Shame on them...

 

[Bricklayer]

This is just an odd cycle. Nothing magical about it. Like the dearth of big men, it will correct. No major sport (North American at least) has anything other than a bi-conference playoff system. Only the NFL spurns the East vs. West attempt to regionalize things, and that's only because of the historical accident of the AFL/NFL merger. These sorts of proposals are always knee jerk and shortsighted. five years from now when LBJ, Howard, Wade, Bosh etc. are all in their prime contention years, this whole imbalance thing may well be a distant memory.

 

[Gargamel]

I think that the CBA is only one part of the equation, but to take one really obvious example, if a franchise has a roster full of garbage, it's just too bad for them until a bunch of contracts enter their final year. In other sports, if you're paying someone $20M a year, and he's a locker room cancer who plays like crap, you just fire him. In the NBA, you become the Knicks instead. Or the "we're on hold until 2011" Kings.

Disclaimer: I don't nec disagree w/ anything you've said.

What you've stated is a byproduct of the onwer's restructuring of yearly increases after the FA class of 96. Their goal then was to make each other more fiscally responsible in the hopes that guys like Allan Houston and Juwan Howard weren't getting 90-100 mill by default. That's why they also got a rookie pay scale in place, stopping guys like Zo and JJ from holding out for ridiculous starter contracts. Then the league got more stringent on monetary rules surrounding trades and introduced the lux tax in the hopes of decreasing player movement.

All that stuff has forced owners to really think before acting. On the one hand, responsibility to the bottom line is smart. A guy like Jerry Buss will patently refuse to max out an Eddie Jones or a Caron Butler. Otoh, that same responsibility can hurt certain clubs. To make profit, Tim Sarver had to trade key pieces and future draft picks and the Suns' window has shattered in less than 2 yrs. I'm sure there are many other examples.

I also think that pay is way out of hand, insofar as it forces owners to do things like demand arenas costing upwards of half a billion dollars. That can make life very hard for smaller market teams like Charlotte, Seattle/OKC and Sac. I'd like to see a lower and harder cap for that reason. If you have 12,000 fans showing up every night, at $30 a head, you shouldn't be facing bankruptcy or a forced move. And there are a lot of metropolitan areas in the US which can't really do better than that, especially with the economy hurting. Hard to see any reason why we should be paying players more than a small premium over what they'd get playing in Europe. Having an NBA player, in a 13 year career, be able to make over a quarter of a billion dollars is absolutely ludicrous. The highest paid basketball player in Europe, Theodoros Papaloukas, playing for a huge market team (Moscow), makes 3M Euros a year (about $4M). Do we really need to pay our players six times as much?

I could go on, but you get the general idea.

In light of what I said above, they've got a LOOOOONG way to go. Look at what they've already done to manage salaries w/o going to the hard cap. I don't think a hard cap will ever get past the Player's Union w/o a strike.

Stern's desire to expand is ridiculous, also. Either that or it shows he can't automatically veto the move to a small market.

NO failed once already and right now they are LUCKY to have a Chris Paul or they'd fail again (and they still may in a couple years). Charlotte failed once and yet they try again. Small markets are inherent risks for expansion, no getting around it, imo. EG: Utah had to trade Nique in 82 because they couldn't afford to sign him. Their owner scheduled a dozen games in Vegas for a couple of seasons in the hopes of an immediate move from Utah. He moved them to SLC to eventually get to Vegas in the first place. League wouldn't approve that move then, so don't believe anyone who says Vegas is a possibility. (That was incidentally why Kareem's scoring record game was played at Thomas & Mack.)

It might pee you off to hear this, but if it's predictable that funds for a new building could very well collapse a franchise, then a wealthy bball fan moving a team to their own town probably shouldn't happen.

 

[fnordius]

Stern's desire to expand is ridiculous, also. Either that or it shows he can't automatically veto the move to a small market.

What bothers me more is that existing franchises have become too expensive for cities to support, and those on the margin usually become non-competitive. If you look at Sac, for example, the market (when judged in the usual ways) isn't really that small. Radio market: #27 (doesn't count Stockton or other neighboring cities) http://www.arbitron.com/radio_stations/mm001050.asp Television market: #20 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_stations_in_North_America_by_media_market

Now, if there are 30 teams, and the 20th largest TV market area can't support a competitive team, or maybe a team at all, there is a big problem. Stern could cut the number of teams in half, which is certainly not going to happen, or he can make it possible for moderate-sized cities to afford, even if it means a strike, or he can ship half of the league overseas, although I'm not sure how many countries are silly enough to want NBA teams when they already have established leagues of their own in place.

But he's gotta do something, because this model isn't working, and, with a declining economy, it's only going to get worse.