Since the NBA went to a six-division format, the top three seeds in each conference have gone to the three division winners. If the playoffs were today, the two best teams in the West, Dallas (41-11) and San Antonio (40-12), would potentially face each other in the second round of the playoffs. The league is considering its options to avoid such a situation in the future.
“I think the one thing there may be some interest in … would be to maybe look at how you seed the top four teams,” deputy commissioner Russ Granik said Saturday. “One thing that we have kicked around is whether you might say, all right, those same four teams are going to get the top four seeds, but maybe you do it in accordance with their records.”
I hear the argument that the Mavs, if they’re going to reach the NBA Finals, are going to have to beat the Spurs eventually, whether it’s in the second round or in the West Finals – so why bother changing the format? Well, for two reasons: (1) the playoffs should be set up so that the two best teams in each conference meet in their respective conference finals – that’s the marquee matchup that the fans want (2) if the Mavs have the #1 seed they should be rewarded by not having to face the #2 seed until the conference finals – the Spurs could lose their second round series.
In the end, you don’t want a second round series to be the biggest matchup in the conference playoffs. It’s too bad that the league won’t be able to avoid that this year.
