God no! The playoffs already grind out until late June. "The increased number would reduce the chances of good teams missing the playoffs in the stronger conference." And two more sub 40-win teams in the weaker conference making the playoffs. Gag!. I'd much rather see a 16-team playoff with the best 16 teams regardless of conference. Yeah, once every blue moon an 8th seed knocks off a 1 seed, but no team with a losing regular season record has ever won a playoff series. No way do I want to see two more sub-500 teams making the post season. BNM
16-team single-elimination tournament for the bottom 16 teams to determine draft order, with the top 2 teams earning playoff spots alongside the 14 top teams. Then seed the playoffs by record irrespective of conference. Ends the problem of crappy teams getting playoff spots they don't deserve, and ends tanking.
Adding more bad teams would only make it worse. The East had two sub-.500 teams make the playoffs last season (and one at exactly .500). Do you really think adding 38-win IND and 37-win MIA to the playoffs in the East would have made the post season more compelling? That would have given the East 5 teams at, or below .500. 39-win PHO would have also made it in the West. Again, adding more bad teams will not make the playoffs more interesting. If anything, I'd rather see a format that prevents any team with a losing record from making the playoffs. Even best 16 regardless of conference would have resulted in one sub-.500 team making it this year (40-42 BOS), but at least it would have eliminated the sub 40-win teams - not added even more of them. BNM
Bill Simmons proposed a variation of this long before I ever did. I'm just an opportunistic plagiarist.
I would rather it be teams 1-16 make the playoffs with concerence winner guaranteed seed 1-2. The bottom 14 teams have that same playoff but the one that wins the single elimination tourney gets the first pick and so on. They could even have these games going while the playoffs are going and earn even more revenue.
Thing is, 16 team tournaments are simple. 14 requires byes. Plus, my way, a team could suffer a major mid-season setback but still have a shot at the title, or a young team could gel late and make an exciting run into the playoffs. Basically it opens up the possibility of an NCAA-style Cinderella story.
Not that I disagree, but devil's advocate wonders what's the motivation for average players on crappy teams to win a tournament to draft a player who is better than them who will take their jobs? Edit: Sorry, I somehow missed the part about the top two teams making the playoffs. That I like very much.
The thought that if that player plays particularly well, the team will draft a new good player at another position instead of their position, or that they'll be sought after enough to be able to find another team that will overpay them. Or, hopefully, just their innate competitive nature and desire to win.
(See my edit above.) And good point. Devil's advocate thinks these guys are nothing if not confident, and they no doubt want to play on a 'better' team, and by the team drafting high, the team and their own chances of success will improve (and some lesser end of bench player will be the one getting the axe).
Stupid unless they expand. But still they'd need to expand to at least 36 teams for it to make sense. 18 team conferences, 9 team divisions... division winners get byes
Oh and make the All Star Game & festivities after the playoffs are all over with. If they do the NBA might actually get some NBA stars to do the dunk contest.
Of course, with any system there's an avenue for abuse. For instance, the Thunder would probably have won themselves a top two seed this year under my plan, and been able to add a D'angelo Russell of Jahlil Okafor to Westbrook/Durant/Ibaka. That would have come completely organically, but what is to prevent a pretty good but clearly not contending team (say, Washington) from intentionally underachieving in order to gain a top pick, still make the playoffs, but build for the future as well. Ah well, back to the drawing board.
Shoot....when I saw the headline I thought it meant *reduce* it from 16 to 10. Have fewer teams make the play-offs and change the CBA to allow much larger play-off bonuses for those that do. Every win becomes more meaningful.
They should remove conferences IMO and like others have mentioned just have the top 16 teams play each other. They should also reduce the amount of games played down from 82 to like 60ish like we had in the lockout year a few years ago. It reduces chance for injury, makes the players play at a higher level for more games, and makes winning every game even more important. They should also restructure the divisions to ensure there is the least amount of travel for each team possible, especially considering Portland travels a billion a a half miles a year simply because we're so geographically isolated. Oh, as for Mark Cuban and the OP, I strongly dislike this idea as more crappy teams in the eastern conference will make it into the playoffs for really no reason at all.
