It appears the NBA is starting to get a clue in regards to their playoff format. They are changing their seeding as follows:
Starting in the upcoming season, the top four seeds — the three division winners and the second-place team with the best record — will be seeded according to their win-loss total, guaranteeing that the top two teams in each conference can’t meet until the conference finals, the league announced Wednesday.
As a result, the debacle which happened in the Western Conference last year will not happen again. Dallas was forced into the #4 seed, even though they had a better record than division winners Phoenix and Denver.
The new system will still guarantee the division winners a playoff spot, but it will put more emphasis on the win-loss record, which is how it should be. A team like Dallas last year proved why the previous NBA playoff format is not effective. Just because a team wins their division doesn’t mean it should be guaranteed a top 3 seed. Records always should matter and unfortunately for the Mavs last season, they were forced to match up with the #1 seed Spurs in the second round despite having the second best record in the league.
The NBA realizes they made a mistake, fixed the problem, and the playoffs will be better because of it.
