Want true Finals? Change the format
The Golden State Warriors versus the Rockets in the NBA Finals. How sweet would that be? We won’t be seeing that dream, though. And despite the fact that the best team in pro basketball has won 17 consecutive games, and the team with Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry already has 50 wins, there’s no chance in the world that the Rockets and Warriors will actually end up as final-round opponents on the NBA’s grandest stage.
Instead, it’ll be the Rockets and the team from Canada. Or the Warriors and the team from Canada. Or, if the Raptors fall short and disappoint once again, the Rockets or Warriors against Kyrie Irving’s Celtics or LeBron James’ Cavaliers.
Which means that with 18 regular-season games and 83 days remaining until the Finals, we already know that the two best teams in the league won’t actually play each other in the NBA’s final round.
What a shame. I’m fine with the final outcome in baseball. The historic American and National Leagues. Six months and 162 games. The playoff heat of October. Then one last round between two survivors in the World Series. Not even interleague play can ruin the beauty of MLB’s annual drama.
The Super Bowl is the Super Bowl. Despite its brevity, the NFL season is a monster. The AFC and NFC work just fine. The best two teams prove it from September through January, and I can’t remember the last time that someone complained about the second-best team from a conference having to watch the big game on TV. If you make the Super Bowl, you almost always belong there.
But the NBA? The playoffs are too long. The 82-game schedule is a bore. And just when we’re coming off the high of the NCAA’s March Madness and the Final Four, we’re reminded that more than half of the teams in pro basketball make the postseason every year and the playoffs area dragged-out mess. Too many off days. Too much dead time. Too many teams that don’t have a shot. A predictable format begging for modernization and change.
This NBA season has only driven home the point.
The Western and Eastern Conferences should obviously remain. But only the top-16 overall teams — 12, if we’re being honest — should make the playoff cut and seeding should truly be based off wins and losses, not conference standings.
Want to throw in a little extra fun? Turn spots 11 and 12 into a mini-tournament that sets up the postseason.
Toronto (47-17) would be third in the West right now. The top four teams in the West (Rockets, Warriors, Blazers, Pelicans) have won a combined 41 consecutive games. The meandering Wizards are No. 4 in the East — and a 4-0 sweep waiting to happen if they had to face the Rockets or Warriors in the playoffs.
The West has been loaded for years. But with superstars intentionally forming super teams and nine of the NBA’s 30 teams tanking for lottery tickets, the imbalance in pro basketball has become unsightly.
No wonder playoff reseeding has recently been on the mind of commissioner Adam Silver, who continues to impress and has only kept the league moving forward in a post-David Stern world.
“You also would like to have a format where your two best teams are ultimately going to meet in the Finals. And, obviously, if it’s the top team in the East and top team in the West,” Silver said in February during All-Star weekend. “I’m not saying this is the case this year, but you could have a situation where the top two teams in the league are meeting in the conference finals or somewhere else.
“So we’re going to continue to look at that. It’s still my hope that we’re going to figure out ways. Maybe ultimately you have to add even more days to the season to spread it out a little bit more to deal with the travel. Maybe air travel will get better. All things we’ll keep looking at.”
The top two teams in the league meeting in the conference finals — that’s the NBA’s current problem.
Since Game 1 of 82, we’ve been slowly moving toward Rockets vs. Warriors in the Western Conference finals. Literally: James Harden and Co. downed Golden State 122121 on opening night. Since then, it’s been a daily march toward a sevengame series between two teams that are made for each other.
The only problem: That longbuilt up battle would be in the conference finals, not the actual NBA Finals.
Maybe something absolutely crazy happens and the Warriors fall apart before their fourth consecutive conference finals. Maybe the Rockets disappear again — what a crusher that would be this year — and we’re forced to rethink the limitations of the Harden era yet again.
But right now? It’s the Rockets and Warriors running the Association … and then it’s everyone else staring down the court in awe.
Pro basketball has a tanking problem. There’s also been a long-standing issue of too many unwatchable games between starless, out-of-contention teams every night.
Milwaukee and Miami (both 34-31) are set to make the playoffs in the East, but Utah and Denver (both 35-30) currently fall short in the ultra-competitive West.
Give the intentional losers and barely .500 more incentive win.
Let the two best teams in the NBA fight one last time for a golden trophy, not just a trip to the Finals.