Should the NBA eliminate East/West distinctions

[Moranis]

Lots of media talk about finally doing away with the East/West for the playoffs with the West seemingly getting stronger and the East getting weaker (outside of Boston of course).  The proposals essentially would even out the schedule to approximately 3 games against every other team (29*3=87 so 5 teams you would play only twice) and then just taking the best 16 teams.  Even if you didn't even out the schedule, would the playoffs be better if you just took the 16 best teams (or even just the top 8 from each conference) and seeded them 1 to 16.  So last year the first round would look like this (note I didn't work out all of the tiebreakers between East/West teams).

1. GS v. 16. Portland
8. Utah v. 9. Washington
4. Boston v. 13. Milwaukee
5. Cleveland v. 12. Memphis
3. Houston v. 14. Indiana
6. LAC v. 11. Atlanta
7. Toronto v. 10. OKC
2. San Antonio v. 15. Chicago

So assuming the top seeds all win, the second round would be
GS v. Utah
Bos v. Cle
Hou v. LAC
SA v. Tor

So the semis would be
GS v. Cle (since Cle actually beat Bos, I'm advancing them)
SA v. Hou

And the finals
GS v. SA

Is that playoffs better?  Does it provide longer series?

I'm not really sure it would do what the pundits seem to think.  As there are still a lot of uncompetitive matchups in the first 2 rounds and I'm really not so sure the Semis would be all that competitive (I mean SA beat Hou in 6 and GS beat Cle in 5).  Now I do think evening out the schedule and then doing this might have a greater effect on providing better competition over time as then the 16 best teams would make the playoffs every year since everyone's schedule is pretty comparable. 

[CelticD]

 those match ups look a lot more attractive than the predictable bore of last year's playoffs.

if they did away with all-star weekend i wouldnt be mad at that either. i believe one concern ive heard may be the flying back n forth when the playoffs roll around (some teams may have to fly cross country more than others), but i guess the playoff scheduling can be tweaked somehow.

[Granath]

The media have 24 hours to fill on cable TV so they'll talk about anything under the sun.

But traditions, rivalries, travel time and cost and other factors make this a non-starter. The league is better and richer with conferences and rivalries. Let's say 5 years from now Boston and Philly are the best in the East. There's huge money and media exposure to be gained from those teams playing each other many times throughout the year and building for the playoffs. Those games sell more tickets, more merchandise, whip up the fan base and generate more revenue. Much of that is lost when you go to a flat system.

Then there's the increased travel time and cost. NBA schedules are currently determined by:

4 games against the other 4 division opponents, [4×4=16 games]
4 games against 6 (out-of-division) conference opponents, [4×6=24 games]
3 games against the remaining 4 conference teams, [3×4=12 games]
2 games against teams in the opposing conference. [2×15=30 games]

The furthest West team that Boston plays in the Eastern is, what, Indy? The furthest flight is 3 hours to Miami. The majority of their flights are 1.5 hours. When you dump divisions/conferences then your flight time increases dramatically. That means dragging out the number of days in the schedule because you have to build in more flight time - or having more games that are unfair due to travel schedules. It's more costly, more time consuming and harder to schedule.

Finally, most people look at this sort of thing long-term. The top 6 teams in the NBA last year were GSW, CLE, SA, BOS, HOU and TOR. After GSW I'm not seeing that much difference at the top. The West is stronger to be sure from top to bottom but this will pass. Then look down the road a bit and which teams are predicted to be the strongest? It's really a mix - BOS, GSW, MIL, MIN and a whole bunch of maybes in LAL, PHI, PHO and WAS (to name a few). This may not even be an issue in 5 years. Or it could be an issue the other way.

So yeah, the media may talk about this but I think it's a non-starter.

[Chief Macho]

Yes.  And they should have more tourneys throughout the year like the premiere league.

[Rakulp]

The media have 24 hours to fill on cable TV so they'll talk about anything under the sun.

But traditions, rivalries, travel time and cost and other factors make this a non-starter. The league is better and richer with conferences and rivalries. Let's say 5 years from now Boston and Philly are the best in the East. There's huge money and media exposure to be gained from those teams playing each other many times throughout the year and building for the playoffs. Those games sell more tickets, more merchandise, whip up the fan base and generate more revenue. Much of that is lost when you go to a flat system.

Then there's the increased travel time and cost. NBA schedules are currently determined by:

4 games against the other 4 division opponents, [4×4=16 games]
4 games against 6 (out-of-division) conference opponents, [4×6=24 games]
3 games against the remaining 4 conference teams, [3×4=12 games]
2 games against teams in the opposing conference. [2×15=30 games]

The furthest West team that Boston plays in the Eastern is, what, Indy? The furthest flight is 3 hours to Miami. The majority of their flights are 1.5 hours. When you dump divisions/conferences then your flight time increases dramatically. That means dragging out the number of days in the schedule because you have to build in more flight time - or having more games that are unfair due to travel schedules. It's more costly, more time consuming and harder to schedule.

Finally, most people look at this sort of thing long-term. The top 6 teams in the NBA last year were GSW, CLE, SA, BOS, HOU and TOR. After GSW I'm not seeing that much difference at the top. The West is stronger to be sure from top to bottom but this will pass. Then look down the road a bit and which teams are predicted to be the strongest? It's really a mix - BOS, GSW, MIL, MIN and a whole bunch of maybes in LAL, PHI, PHO and WAS (to name a few). This may not even be an issue in 5 years. Or it could be an issue the other way.

So yeah, the media may talk about this but I think it's a non-starter.

TP and I agree.

These things will even themselves out eventually.  Has it really been that long ago that the East was a beast, and the West was a mess?

Too many reasons not to do it...too few to make the change.

Rak

[Moranis]

The media have 24 hours to fill on cable TV so they'll talk about anything under the sun.

But traditions, rivalries, travel time and cost and other factors make this a non-starter. The league is better and richer with conferences and rivalries. Let's say 5 years from now Boston and Philly are the best in the East. There's huge money and media exposure to be gained from those teams playing each other many times throughout the year and building for the playoffs. Those games sell more tickets, more merchandise, whip up the fan base and generate more revenue. Much of that is lost when you go to a flat system.

Then there's the increased travel time and cost. NBA schedules are currently determined by:

4 games against the other 4 division opponents, [4×4=16 games]
4 games against 6 (out-of-division) conference opponents, [4×6=24 games]
3 games against the remaining 4 conference teams, [3×4=12 games]
2 games against teams in the opposing conference. [2×15=30 games]

The furthest West team that Boston plays in the Eastern is, what, Indy? The furthest flight is 3 hours to Miami. The majority of their flights are 1.5 hours. When you dump divisions/conferences then your flight time increases dramatically. That means dragging out the number of days in the schedule because you have to build in more flight time - or having more games that are unfair due to travel schedules. It's more costly, more time consuming and harder to schedule.

Finally, most people look at this sort of thing long-term. The top 6 teams in the NBA last year were GSW, CLE, SA, BOS, HOU and TOR. After GSW I'm not seeing that much difference at the top. The West is stronger to be sure from top to bottom but this will pass. Then look down the road a bit and which teams are predicted to be the strongest? It's really a mix - BOS, GSW, MIL, MIN and a whole bunch of maybes in LAL, PHI, PHO and WAS (to name a few). This may not even be an issue in 5 years. Or it could be an issue the other way.

So yeah, the media may talk about this but I think it's a non-starter.

The West has been stronger top to bottom for 20 years.  ESPN analytics show that Lebron is the only player in the top 14 in the league that is in the East right now.  San Antonio and Houston (along with GS) all finished with a better record than any team in the East.  Cleveland and Toronto were the 2 and 3 seed in the East, but had the same record as Utah and the Clippers (the 4 and 5 seed in the West).  The 8th seed in each conference had 41 wins, so even the bottom is similar.  I don't think there is really all that much difference between teams like OKC and Milwaukee (last year) even though OKC finished with 5 more wins (and both were the 6 seeds), but the record sure does indicate a difference.  I mean it was just 3 playoffs ago that a 45 win Thunder team missed the playoffs while 2 teams in the East made the playoffs below .500 and a third was right at .500.  The season before that the Suns missed the playoffs with 48 wins while the Hawks made it in with just 38 wins.  The Suns 48 wins would have been tied for 3rd in the East yet they weren't in the 2014 playoffs at all.  The year before the Suns, the Jazz won 43 and sat home while yet another 38 win team was in the playoffs in the East. 

This isn't just some new development.  The West has been the dominate conference for years and it doesn't look like it is going to change any time soon.  And it isn't like the West is just deeper but the East is winning the titles.  The West has won 13 of the 19 titles since the Bulls run ended.  So the West has more good teams and the best team more times than not. 

At some point if this continues it will become a much larger problem for the league as interest will wane.  Of course if the Celtics, Sixers, and Bucks all end up as dominate teams winning title after title in the 2020's, then it will fix itself.

[Granath]

Stuff

I'm not sure what analyitics ESPN is using but I'd have a hard time accepting a top 15 list that didn't include Giannis. Bleacher has Lebron, Giannis, Lowry and IT in that top 15. Of course, two others - PG13 and Butler - just moved over. But no one is disputing that the West is the stronger conference. It's been that way for a while. Just like it was that way for a while when the East won 12 out of 18 (80s and 90s) or 15 out of 16 (60s).

These things go in cycles. The same thing happened in the NFL as the AFC won 11 out of 13 and then the NFC won an astounding 15 out of 16. The NFC disparity was far greater than the current NBA and that didn't cause any interest to wane in the NFL. Thus there's no reason to think that this will cause an issue in the NBA. Your assertion that it will harm the NBA will need some sort of backup or proof.

Moreover, your response doesn't address any of the other issues I brought up like rivalries, cost, travel time, etc. There's a number of reasons NOT to do it and there's only one reason to do it - to correct a perceived imbalance in the strength of each conference that may very well be a temporary issue. Heck, if they want "balance" then they need to address the creation of superteams like Golden State before messing with the league structure.