Lack of divisional games hurts rivalries

[Moranis]

The NBA is set up now where you only play your divisional opponents 4 times.  You play 6 other members of your conference 4 times, the other 4 conference teams 3 times and the other conference 2 times.  With that schedule divisional rivalries are greatly diminished, though it does help with the whole conference wide seeding thing that was implemented this year.

I'd rather have the NBA be more like the NFL where your schedule has more divisional games.  It would bring back rivalries and I think make for a better season on the whole.  So I would do something like this: Division 4 teams, 8 games each (32 games) and then just play everyone else 2 times (25 teams so 50 games).  Season length is the same, but you play your own division twice as many times as now.  Now granted you don't get the full conference feel as much, but I'm ok with that.  I just miss regular season rivalries and I think this would help with that.

[fairweatherfan]

There are still regular season rivalries, they just seem to be more about who meets in the playoffs a lot, or are contenders in the same conference, instead of who you play several times every regular season.  Like Golden State and the Clippers would be rivals right now whether they were in the same division or not.

Things could be rejiggered so division games are more meaningful - just playing more games is the easiest way to do this - but the divisions are so wildly unbalanced in quality that this would seriously advantage/disadvantage a lot of teams.  We're probably in the same vicinity of quality as New Orleans right now, but our schedule would be comically easier if we were playing the Raps/Knicks/Nets/Sixers for ~40% of the season and they're up against San Antonio/Houston/Memphis/Dallas the same amount.

[PhoSita]

Honestly, I'd abolish the conferences, reshuffle the divisions so they make the most geographic sense possible, and then increase the number of divisional games.

6 divisions, all division winners make the playoffs, the next best 10 records make it after them.  All seeding done by regular season record.

Assuming we stick with 82 games, which is too many:


Two games apiece, home and away, against non-divisional opponents.  That's 50 games.

Sixteen games in the division, 2 home and 2 away against each opponent.

The remaining 16 games can be used however the schedule makers like to increase the number of fun matchups.

[LHR]

Happy you brought this up.  I've talked about this a lot whenever I've had national guests - couldn't agree more.  There are now no more natural rivalries in the NBA the way they are in every single sport - college or professional.  That's a shame.  Duke and North Carolina could both be struggling, but it's still a game that gets the fans involved and is worth attending.  Same with say, Bruins-Canadiens, Bears-Packers -- you get my drift.

You can talk all you want about "teams that meet in the playoffs form regular season rivalries" - not really.  Those come and go.  Right now, there are zero rivalries in the NBA and that's a [dang] travesty.  It's all due to this absurd overreaction about unjust imbalance amongst conferences/divisions, etc - and to that I've always said, who cares because the best team will win the title anyways.  It isn't worth sacrificing the incentive of winning divisions, teams getting all too familiar with eachother by playing local opponents.

Get upset here anyways because the NBA is moving further and further in a different direction without realizing what it's doing.

[Moranis]

I see no issue with re-organizing the divisions BTW and sure the Atlantic is easy right now, but there was a time when the C's and Sixers were by far the two best teams in the conference.  That stuff comes and goes.

I guess if you were going to re-draw the divisions you would do something like this though it isn't as easy as one would guess because of the grouping in the mid-west

1 - Boston, NY, Brooklyn, Philly, Washington
2 - Chicago, Indy, Detroit, Cleveland, Toronto
3 - Miami, Orlando, Memphis, Atlanta, Charlotte
4 - LA, LA, Sacramento, GS, Portland
5 - Dallas, NO, Houston, San An, OKC
6 - Phoenix, Den, Utah, Minny, Milwaukee


This one might also work

1 - Boston, NY, Brooklyn, Philly, Toronto
2 - Chicago, Minny, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland
3 - Memphis, Atlanta, Charlotte, Washington, Indy
4 - LA, LA, Sacramento, GS, Portland
5 - NO, Houston, San An, Miami, Orlando
6 - Phoenix, Den, Utah, Dallas, OKC

[Donoghus]

Eh...I've always been of the mindset that playoff matchups make the rivalries.  Especially nowadays. 

Playoff match ups make the regular season meetings of the teams more interesting.  I've never been concerned about how this is "a big Atlantic Division" showdown or something along those lines.  It's always been about who are the other Eastern Conference contenders or who was the team we had a tough 7 game struggle with the playoffs before.  Stuff like that.

Not really for the more divisional games thing.  They changed that in MLB like 15 years ago.  Sure you get more matchups with the Yankees (or in this case the 76ers or something) but then you're also stuck with more matchups with the Rays (or in this case, the Nets or something).  Then you're either taking away from non-divisional conference opponents or non-conference opponents to balance out the schdule.  So, all of a sudden, you might get Lebron 1-2 times less than before or only seeing AD once year (depending on how you adjust the schedule). 

Playoffs go a great deal in developing rivalries in the NBA. 

[MBunge]

Play everybody in the league in a home and home = 58 games.  That leaves 24 games left in the season.  Play six more games against each of your four divisional opponents = 82.

Then have the playoffs ignore the conferences, with #1 vs #16, #2 vs #15, etc...except the six Division winners get the top six spots.

Imagine the divisional rivalries that will flourish when you play each other that often and the ultimate prize is potentially having a winnable first round series in the playoffs.  It would also massively simplify the crazy travel schedule that results in teams stinking the joint out on their 4th game in five nights.  For example, Boston would spend over a third of their season just traveling to Philly, New York and Toronto.

It'll never happen, though, because of how much harder it would be to schedule TV games.

Mike