First off, it's ridiculous that they play 82 games. The season is a bore that drags on for the better part of 6 months. It should be a league wide round robin of 58 games but since that won't ever happen for many reasons, here's my solution:

Changes

--No conferences, just divisions
-82 game schedule
-League wide triple round robin except against one division.
-A league wide playoffs. A division championship guarantees you a playoff spot but nothing more.
-Seed teams by their record regardless of division.

This solves/keeps:

-The divisions the same
-The schedule the same size and even almost ensures (injuries and trades aside) that players will play in every city twice every two seasons.
-Ensures that at the most one undeserving team makes the playoffs and in reality none because the schedule only differs by 5 games by each team.
-By extension, no deserving playoff team will miss because of unbalanced conferences.
Ensures that each time zone will have a team in the playoffs.
-It also makes sure the best teams have the easiest path to the NBA Finals, not just the best teams in each current conference.
-A more or less balanced league schedule that preserves regional rivalries at all costs.

(04-06-2018 02:06 AM)_C2_ Wrote:  First off, it's ridiculous that they play 82 games. The season is a bore that drags on for the better part of 6 months. It should be a league wide round robin of 58 games but since that won't ever happen for many reasons, here's my solution:

Changes

--No conferences, just divisions
-82 game schedule
-League wide triple round robin except against one division.
-A league wide playoffs. A division championship guarantees you a playoff spot but nothing more.
-Seed teams by their record regardless of division.

This solves/keeps:

-The divisions the same
-The schedule the same size and even almost ensures (injuries and trades aside) that players will play in every city twice every two seasons.
-Ensures that at the most one undeserving team makes the playoffs and in reality none because the schedule only differs by 5 games by each team.
-By extension, no deserving playoff team will miss because of unbalanced conferences.
Ensures that each time zone will have a team in the playoffs.
-It also makes sure the best teams have the easiest path to the NBA Finals, not just the best teams in each current conference.
-A more or less balanced league schedule that preserves regional rivalries at all costs.

I've had a hard time trying to figure out why today's NBA just doesn't excite me like it did in the 90's and 2000's. While I still believe its a distribution of talent, Wedge has pointed out previously that the teams aren't that dissimilar when looking at stars.

I just don't know, while my team was the Hawks I just cared just as much about Chuck Person, Rick Smits and the Pacers, the Bricks with Johnny Starks and Mason, those Portland teams with Drexler and Duckworth and the Twin Towers and that alien (Sam Casell) in Houston. Maybe its nostalgia but I don;t remember complaints about the number of games back then (that might be due to TV scarcity though).

As for you solutions, they only solve the problem of the Western Conference having a greater concentration of good teams, something else that is unexplainable. But any scenario that leads to numerous CST and EST teams being left out of the playoff picture is a non starter for the owners and the TV partners. I have a hard time seeing a way forward for the Association

This wouldn't lead to a number of EST teams being left out and besides, the NBA is more star driven than any other sport, its arguably biggest stars play in Cleveland and Oakland. Meanwhile, a team like the Knicks haven't mattered much in almost two decades and have 2 titles in 71 years. They don't make the playoffs much under the current format as is. Again, one team from each division would be guaranteed to make the playoffs anyways under this format. The West never has 13 teams better than most East teams, so you'd still get 5-6 teams from the east making the playoffs and no fewer than 3 and on top of that, if you want central time zone teams to still make it, then there are 7 western teams that are from the central time zone. This means no more than 8 teams from the Rockies or west would be in the playoffs in a given year and 9 if Seattle gets a team again.

I'd also figure out a way to get the Wolves in the Central. They're just stuck on an island. The problem is that one team would have to be nudged west and it's a mystery as to who that would be. Maybe you put Chicago, Minnesota, Milwaukee, Indiana and Memphis in one division, move Cleveland into the Atlantic and Philly into the Southeast.

non-guaranteed contracts
less ways to circumvent the salary cap

That will get players playing hard all year and create better free agent movement.

I think what has disenfranchised me on the NBA regular season is the players don't play hard. I pretty much just watch the playoffs.

(04-06-2018 05:16 AM)_C2_ Wrote:  I'd also figure out a way to get the Wolves in the Central. They're just stuck on an island. The problem is that one team would have to be nudged west and it's a mystery as to who that would be. Maybe you put Chicago, Minnesota, Milwaukee, Indiana and Memphis in one division, move Cleveland into the Atlantic and Philly into the Southeast.

Today’s Central Division teams actually spent much of their history in the Midwest Division of the Western Conference.

To me the best solution is to eliminate the two-conference setup entirely:

Pacific - Portland, LA Lakers, LA Clippers, Golden State, Sacramento, Phoenix
West - Utah, Denver, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Oklahoma City
South - New Orleans, Memphis, Atlanta, Charlotte, Orlando, Miami
Central - Minnesota, Milwaukee, Chicago, Indiana, Detroit, Cleveland
East - Toronto, Boston, New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Washington

Seattle is the only expansion candidate with an inflexible Division home, but some of the others will have more options, such as Louisville (South or Central), Virginia Beach (South or East), Las Vegas (Pacific or West), and Kansas City (West or Central). Expansion teams could even be rotated during their first few years, like when Orlando, Miami, and Charlotte made pit stops in the Western Conference.

I guess in that case, you play your division mates x7-1 (or in other words, everyone 7 times minus one game against a rotating opponent) and everyone else twice, equaling 82 games. That could work I suppose and puts emphasis on winning your own division but that's a bunch of division games. I guess it could work either way.