Should the NBA allow the top 3 seeds to pick their 1st round opponent

[GreenEnvy]

not against the idea of the higher teams picking their opponents.  would probably make for good bulletin board material in the lockerroom of the lesser seeds --> say this year Milwaukee picked the 6 seed Brooklyn.  Brooklyn uses that snub of them being the easiest opponent as fuel to do whatever it takes to beat Milwaukee.

You always hear that theory, but is Brooklyn really going to muster everything it has to beat Milwaukee simply because they picked them as a favorable matchup? But they wouldn’t have the fuel to do whatever it took to beat them had the matchup been assigned via seeding?

If this was a win-or-go-home situation, maybe. But over 7 games, rarely does a team win simply on motivation.

I think if the NBA is trying to create more drama, go back to best-of-5 in the first round. We know that won’t happen, but that’s the best chance of seeing upsets IMO.

[bdm860]

Under the current system, the 1 seed doesn't know who they are even going to play on Sunday until Friday.  That is a pretty big disadvantage for being the team with the best record. 

By Tuesday night, the Bucks knew they'd probably be playing Miami, maybe Bulls/Raptors on Sunday.
By Wednesday night, the Bucks knew they'd probably be playing Miami, but maybe the Bulls on Sunday.

When the game rolls around on Sunday, the Bucks have home court advantage, had a week off, while whoever their opponent is will have to travel to Milwaukee having just played a win-or-go-home game <=48 hours ago.  I think that's a much  bigger advantage for the Bucks than not being certain which of 2 teams they'll face. 

Or if comparing the #1 seed advantage to the #2-#4 seeds, where #2 has 3-4 days to prep after Tuesday play-in for Game 1, and #3-#4 have a week (if not more) to prep Game 1, isn't the advantage nullified because their opponents have the same amount of time to prepare?

When you consider the Bucks opponent will have had no time to game plan and won't be rested, I don't see the Bucks situation as a big disadvantage.  More of a very slight annoyance.


On a related note though, I do always wonder how a team does game plan for a formidable unknown opponent, like the 2019 Bucks finishing off the C's in 5 going into ECF waiting on the Sixers/Raptors 7 game slug fest to end.  The Bucks had 4 days off when they didn't know who their opponent would be, so are they game planning at all for Embiid/Butler/Simmons or Kawhi/Lowry and co.?

(and I think they could do it ahead of time i.e. Milwaukee give us your order pending results, Boston give us yours, etc. so some of the match-ups could be decided earlier than Friday).

In most years (outside of the last 2, which I'm not sure is the new norm or an anomaly), the #1's preferred opponents in order would probably be #10, #9, #8, #7, #6  So even with this change, they still wouldn't know who they would be facing until after Friday night the majority of seasons.

If you really want to give the Bucks advantage (besides a week off, home court throughout, and matched up against the easiest seed 90% of the time), I think you should just move their Game 1 to Saturday forcing their opponent to play a back-to-back.  The Bucks would have even less time to game plan, but the bonus of a tired opponent should far outweigh that.  (Though the TV partners might not like increasing the odds of a blowout, and the players won't like the idea of b2b).

[Moranis]

Under the current system, the 1 seed doesn't know who they are even going to play on Sunday until Friday.  That is a pretty big disadvantage for being the team with the best record. 

By Tuesday night, the Bucks knew they'd probably be playing Miami, maybe Bulls/Raptors on Sunday.
By Wednesday night, the Bucks knew they'd probably be playing Miami, but maybe the Bulls on Sunday.

When the game rolls around on Sunday, the Bucks have home court advantage, had a week off, while whoever their opponent is will have to travel to Milwaukee having just played a win-or-go-home game <=48 hours ago.  I think that's a much  bigger advantage for the Bucks than not being certain which of 2 teams they'll face. 

Or if comparing the #1 seed advantage to the #2-#4 seeds, where #2 has 3-4 days to prep after Tuesday play-in for Game 1, and #3-#4 have a week (if not more) to prep Game 1, isn't the advantage nullified because their opponents have the same amount of time to prepare?

When you consider the Bucks opponent will have had no time to game plan and won't be rested, I don't see the Bucks situation as a big disadvantage.  More of a very slight annoyance.


On a related note though, I do always wonder how a team does game plan for a formidable unknown opponent, like the 2019 Bucks finishing off the C's in 5 going into ECF waiting on the Sixers/Raptors 7 game slug fest to end.  The Bucks had 4 days off when they didn't know who their opponent would be, so are they game planning at all for Embiid/Butler/Simmons or Kawhi/Lowry and co.?

(and I think they could do it ahead of time i.e. Milwaukee give us your order pending results, Boston give us yours, etc. so some of the match-ups could be decided earlier than Friday).

In most years (outside of the last 2, which I'm not sure is the new norm or an anomaly), the #1's preferred opponents in order would probably be #10, #9, #8, #7, #6  So even with this change, they still wouldn't know who they would be facing until after Friday night the majority of seasons.

If you really want to give the Bucks advantage (besides a week off, home court throughout, and matched up against the easiest seed 90% of the time), I think you should just move their Game 1 to Saturday forcing their opponent to play a back-to-back.  The Bucks would have even less time to game plan, but the bonus of a tired opponent should far outweigh that.  (Though the TV partners might not like increasing the odds of a blowout, and the players won't like the idea of b2b).

I don't think that is true as much as you would think it would be true.  Going back pre-pandemic, I don't think that would be true the very first season i.e. 2019.  The heat were the 10 seed, I don't think they'd have been picked before 9th seed Charlotte, and who knows about the 8th seed Pistons, 7th seed Magic, or 6th seed Nets (pre-Irving).  Those teams were all within 3 games of each of each other.  Out west Lebron's Lakers were the 10th seed while the Kings were the 9th seed.  The Spurs and Clippers were both the 7 and 8 with the same record and no stars.  If Lebron was healthy, you might choose the Lakers after all 3 of those teams even with the Lakers having a poor record just because of Lebron.  You might have also preferred the Jazz to the Thunder that year even though the Jazz were the 5 seed