Likely that Winning Division won't guarantee playoff spot

[Moranis]

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/13301887/nba-leaning-no-playoff-guarantee-division-winners-adam-silver-says

[Donoghus]

Just get rid of the divisions then.

[317]

this is a step to far imo. i like removing the top 4 seed for a division winner, but winning your division should have some benefit still.

[saltlover]

It does make divisions stupid then.  Also, the odds that the top 8 teams come from 10 teams in te other two divisions is so low so as to not warrant a change.  Football actually has this problem with division winners, and they do nothing.

[PhoSita]

There's really no point in having divisions if winning yours doesn't guarantee a playoff spot.

Divisions are largely pointless as it is, though, especially once you remove the guaranteed top 4 seed.

If they want to make divisions more meaningful, they should change the schedule so that teams face divisional opponents significantly more frequently than non-division opponents.

Example:

Each team faces non-division opponents once at home and once away.  That's 50 games.

Each team then faces its 4 divisional opponents 8 times each, 4 at home, 4 away.  32 games.


Would that skew things too much for teams in easier divisions?  Probably.  But that would make divisional rivalries a lot more interesting.

[GetLucky]

There's really no point in having divisions if winning yours doesn't guarantee a playoff spot.

Divisions are largely pointless as it is, though, especially once you remove the guaranteed top 4 seed.

If they want to make divisions more meaningful, they should change the schedule so that teams face divisional opponents significantly more frequently than non-division opponents.

Example:

Each team faces non-division opponents once at home and once away.  That's 50 games.

Each team then faces its 4 divisional opponents 8 times each, 4 at home, 4 away.  32 games.


Would that skew things too much for teams in easier divisions?  Probably.  But that would make divisional rivalries a lot more interesting.

If that happened, the Celtics would probably have a win total in the mid-50s!

[Moranis]

There's really no point in having divisions if winning yours doesn't guarantee a playoff spot.

Divisions are largely pointless as it is, though, especially once you remove the guaranteed top 4 seed.

If they want to make divisions more meaningful, they should change the schedule so that teams face divisional opponents significantly more frequently than non-division opponents.

Example:

Each team faces non-division opponents once at home and once away.  That's 50 games.

Each team then faces its 4 divisional opponents 8 times each, 4 at home, 4 away.  32 games.


Would that skew things too much for teams in easier divisions?  Probably.  But that would make divisional rivalries a lot more interesting.

Frankly I think they should do that.  Pretty much every other sport does that.  That is afterall the point of a division.