Adam Silver already has changed the format of the NBA’s All-Star Game, and now he’s looking at shaking up the league’s playoff system.
The NBA commissioner told ESPN’s Nick Friedell that the league is considering reseeding the playoffs to include the top-16 teams regardless of the conference if they can make the schedule more balanced.
“Reformatting the playoffs is something we’ll continue to look at,” Silver said. “I think though it would require revisiting the regular-season schedule as well. As I’ve said before, we don’t play a balanced schedule now, as I’m sure you know. And for those that don’t, that means that teams in the East play each other more than they play teams in the West.
“And our feeling is, if we were going to seed 1-16, we would need to play a balanced schedule to make it fair for everyone if we were going to seed 1-16 in the playoffs. It may be that as we continue to experiment with the number of days over which we can schedule 82 games that it will create more of an opportunity for a balanced schedule.”
Silver also has suggested the league could go away from an 82-game season in order to facilitate more rest for players, but that wouldn’t be for some time.
“Let me add to that I said the other day (to USA TODAY) that there’s no magic in an 82-game season,” Silver said. “It’s not a change you’re going to see in the short term, but I think when we step back and look holistically at our schedule and how playoffs are seeded we should look at the entire format. Counter-balancing seeding playoff teams 1-16 is also the desire to create more rest for our players and when possible reduce the amount of travel.”
Personally, we’re all for a 42-win Western Conference team getting into the playoffs ahead of a 39-win Eastern Conference franchise, so we hope Silver can get this done.
Thumbnail photo via Bob Donnan/USA TODAY Sports Images
