Playing the "what if" game is pointless at this juncture, but IMO having home court advantage definitely helped the Heat repeat as champs...
And I'm not necessarily talking about the 2-3-2 format... Yes, yes... I know the format is obsolete and needs to be changed.
Said format is a great disadvantage to the road team given that most Conference champs are good enough to cir vent three consecutive losses... In other words, winning three consecutive Finals home games is a difficult task given the level of the opposition. So yes, I recognize this too is a problem.
The bigger problem, however, is that overall league disparity contextually ensures that the team that plays in the 'weaker' conference has a better chance of amassing the better overall record given that the ulative strength of their opposition is weaker.
Halfway through the 2012-2013 regular season, when the best record was still up for grabs (and before Parker's ankle injury) the Spurs were neck and neck with the Heat record-wise. The Heat then went on a historic tear by bullying teams in the "Leastern" Conference, and began to build themselves a cushion... Parker's injury meant that the Spurs' could no longer vie for the best record, given the adjustment pains (and minutes management) required by his absence (along with Pop's conservative approach to such things). One could then point to the Heat's record vs. the West and suggest that they had equal success against the teams in the stronger conference but some of those victories were accrued later in that streak (and the Heat were playing harder than they would have because of said streak). That said, one could also note that their victories vs. the West weren't the runaway victories they were stockpiling against Eastern conference foes...
The owners would never agree to it, but one way to ensure league parity would be to reduce the length of the NBA regular season to 62 games. With 32 teams comprising the NBA pool that would mean every team would play a home and away versus every other team in the league. In effect every team would intrinsically have the same chance of attaining the best record in the league. Regardless of the distribution of talent, league parity could be ensured under this system. Even individual statistics would be placed on equal footing... For example, Carmelo likely does not beat out Durant for the league's Scoring le if the Knicks were in the Western Conference.
The byproduct of this change would also ensure a better 'product' on the floor given that a shorter season could eliminate the need for having to play multiple back-to-back games throughout the season... No more 3 games in 4 nights... No more 4 games in 5 nights... directionally this could also help reduce the amount of fatigue related injuries (which would again, yield a better on-court product)...
I know it's a business, but one could keep things interesting by slightly extending the playoff season to counteract the shortened season (so that owners don't necessarily lose too much money from having had the number of games in the regular season reduced). Playoff games yield better quality play anyways given that they are more meaningful.
In the new format ALL teams would reach the playoffs 1-16 per conference. The playoffs would be extended by one round - a best of 5 series to start off the post-season. The end of the regular season would instantly be more interesting as every team would still have something to play for. And every team would be guaranteed at least 3 playoff games per season - again, games which are of better quality anyways.
This proposal is by no means perfect... but given how evenly matched up the San Antonio Spurs were with the Miami Heat in the Finals, one could make a legitimate case that Miami was in a better position simply because the Heat played in a much weaker conference (backed up by the numbers). And if a system discriminately creates an advantage for one team - said system needs to be improved.
Last edited by Phenomanul; 06-23-2013 at 04:38 PM.
Too early yet to see how the new CBA is going to really impact that. In the next 2-3 years we should have a better picture, but in a sense, that's what it tried to address.
To be fair, in hindsight, the West was pretty freaking weak this season. I love it and I hope it stays that way, but I'm not 100% sold the East was so much worse this season.
IIRC, the Heat actually had a better record against West teams than East teams this past season. Then again, the Heat is literally a superteam.
Good points. It's sad how long it's taken nba to take parity seriously. Nfl has been so much better in this regard, though I prefer the NBA.
To me, the 2-3-2 format or conference not being well balanced are just details.
I made the computation earlier this year and with this year regular season results, the ECF teams having easier schedules was the equivalent of them having 2 extra wins. For example, an eastern team with a 45-37 record would have had a 43-39 record if they were in the west.
The true issue is the NBA regular season having too much games. 82 48-minutes-long games is way too much. Players were dropping like flies this year. We have reach a point where teams doing well in playoffs are more the ones that are the healthiest than the ones with the best rosters.
I also think 82 games a season lessens the nba product. Players rest and dont really give it their all every game of the season. It also gets long and boring. I would also like a best of 5 in the first 2 rounds of the playoffs.
It gets even more crunched up when you add the AllStar stoppage...
Horrible, this idea. I don't even know where to start.
1. Getting rid of 20 regular season games per team is dumb. This would reduce revenue by 25% for every single team. That's going to be a tough sell for the owners, players, TV execs, sponsors, etc. This alone squashes your idea.
2. If you want everyone to make the playoffs, why not just get rid of the playoffs all together and have 32 champions? Everyone wins!
3. For your playoff system, you say the conferences would rank the teams 1-16, but I thought the whole point of your plan was to not have conferences? If split it up for just the playoffs then you're going to have a disparity one way or another.
4. All because a team plays in a weak conference does not mean it has an advantage. In the post-Jordan era (1999-2013), you could make the argument that the East has been weaker than the West, from top to bottom, every year. Using your logic, the East representative should have had home court advantage every year in the Finals, but they've only had it twice (2008 & 2013). Let's face it, Miami was the best team in the league this year, regardless of what conference they played in.
As Nono said, Miami was actually better against the West this year, and this was also probably the weakest Western Conference of my lifetime, tbh..
I also don't see the issue with parity..the NBA has actually had solid compe ion since 2010-2011..99% of people didn't expect the Mavs to win the le, and the West subsequently had 2 different champions following the Mavs..
The Heat have won the East 3 years in a row, but they were pushed to game 7 in consecutive years against Boston and Indiana..
The NBA will never truly have the same type of parity as other sports, as individual players in basketball have far more impact on the game than individual players in other sports, tbh..
Not sure specifically what OP wants the league to do.
The reason conferences are set up the way they are are basically because of travel reasons.
The Conferences would still exist... Only you wouldn't have to play every team in said conference 4 times...
On HCA: Honestly, I'd prefer the NBA did the MLB's way of determining who gets HCA in the Finals. Either their current criteria or the old one.
Old one: Alternate between each conference each year, no coin flip, just take turns (fair, though you can get unlucky).
New one: Whichever conference wins the all star game gets HCA in the Finals. Also fair since only players from playoff teams tend to get selected anyway. They all want to win (some more than others of course, so they can get played more). Would also make that game a lot more exciting and interesting.
On conference record disparity: I agree with this 100%. It wouldn't be a big deal EXCEPT that they determine who gets HCA in the Finals by record. That's why record is an extremely ty way to determine HCA. It's well-known that the east has been terrible, just like back in the day the west was terrible while the east had most of the elite teams.
I don't think we need more cross-conference play if they change the determining factor for Finals HCA to alternating format or all star game winner. I think we're just going to have to suck this one up because they won't let the west play the east that many times and vice versa. There's always going to be padded records and inflated stats for teams that player in whichever happens to be the weaker conference.
The west is really going to soften up in a few years once Dirk, Kobe, Timmy, and the other old greats retire. It's going to be Durant, Griffin, Curry.Not exactly defensive gurus out there. West is gonna be like the east soon. Run and gun dunkfests wrapped around a boring game full of ty iso ball and chucking.
On reducing games in the season: No. Not only will it not be, it shouldn't be. It basically renders all seasonal records obsolete, and makes total career stats leaders become unreachable. Really bad idea, sorry to say OP. Will never happen.
I missed the part where you want the league to reduce the number of games down to 62.
Since this will never happen, the rest of your entire post is moot.
Everything about baseball is stupid including this suggestion. Teams should be rewarded for hard work, not some incredibly stupid fairness/all star game bull.On HCA: Honestly, I'd prefer the NBA did the MLB's way of determining who gets HCA in the Finals. Either their current criteria or the old one.
Old one: Alternate between each conference each year, no coin flip, just take turns (fair, though you can get unlucky).
New one: Whichever conference wins the all star game gets HCA in the Finals. Also fair since only players from playoff teams tend to get selected anyway. They all want to win (some more than others of course, so they can get played more). Would also make that game a lot more exciting and interesting.
On conference record disparity: I agree with this 100%. It wouldn't be a big deal EXCEPT that they determine who gets HCA in the Finals by record. That's why record is an extremely ty way to determine HCA. It's well-known that the east has been terrible, just like back in the day the west was terrible while the east had most of the elite teams.
I don't think we need more cross-conference play if they change the determining factor for Finals HCA to alternating format or all star game winner. I think we're just going to have to suck this one up because they won't let the west play the east that many times and vice versa. There's always going to be padded records and inflated stats for teams that player in whichever happens to be the weaker conference.
The west is really going to soften up in a few years once Dirk, Kobe, Timmy, and the other old greats retire. It's going to be Durant, Griffin, Curry.
On reducing games in the season: No. Not only will it not be, it shouldn't be. It basically renders all seasonal records obsolete, and makes total career stats leaders become unreachable. Really bad idea, sorry to say OP. Will never happen.
Furthermore I think the East is a lot more punishing conference to play through in the post season over the past few years. Celtics, Pacers, Bulls. Which teams in the West are brutal, grinding defenses? Memphis? Please... The Spurs are great fundamentally on defense but they don't beat anyone up. Neither do OKC and Memphis.
Umm... there's actually 30 teams, so home and away with each team is 58 games.
The Spurs traveling to Dallas and Houston more often than they travel to Boston just makes sense. And divisions make for better rivalries. Back when the Mavs were still a playoff team, it was interesting playing them multiple times a year.
And the whole home court thing for the finals is overblown -- Miami absolutely had the best regular season this year, regardless of conference. The Spurs had a very good regular season, but they had some injuries and they lost too many games, especially in April.
I guess I just disagree with the idea that we should just upend the whole structure of the regular season just to fix this one -- largely theoretical -- quirk.
Kind of a nonstarter OP. As was mentioned, let's see how the new CBA shakes things up.
I don't really think Parity is a huge deal(The league as a whole wants to maximise revenue, and I'm not sure that 30 good teams rather than 5 great, 10 good and 15 teams is the best way to achieve that)
I've said several times here that a 76 game schedule(4 vs Division, 3 vs conference and 2 vs non-conference opponents) is the best way, but even then, that doesn't address parity.
To get parity, you'd have a hard cap, with blind second price auctions set up on all players, every year, with an algorithm so that all teams get the same surplus in terms of (Total of their bids-Total expenditure). You'd still have differences in wins due to luck, but that's the ideal system for parity.
That's no fun. Players don't get attached to a city, teams don't grow together, and it strips away player choice(Even a 2 sided matching model with player demand functions choosing where to go would be problematic.)
You're not going to get parity with max salaries. LeBron is worth far more than the 18m or so he's paid, and the fact that the Heat have him gives them a huge advantage. (Between 12-30m a year, depending on the model assumptions, stats used etc).
If you want athletes to have free choice of where to play, you're not going to get parity. Anyone who thought the CBA re-negotiations were about Parity(Rather than the owners going "Give us all the money, we should be guaranteed profitability, and we're in a stronger bargaining position as we're more responsible with our money and don't need the season to go on) is an idiot.
Yeah, the whole parity thing is basically a game of tug of war between the players' union (who want the right to be paid without a ceiling on possible salaries, and to choose where they can play as opposed to being at the whim of team management (thank/blame Oscar Robertson for free agency, btw)) and the owners (who want to maximize profitability).
It's a farce as far as quality is concerned, but a lot of things would be far more enjoyable if the for-profit angle were eliminated.
And unlike other pro sports, Basketball is the sport where having one great player matters the most, because there are only 10 people on the court all at once and each player's role is not set in stone. Contrast baseball where there are designated hitters, basemen, shortstops, and pitchers, or gridiron football where the offensive and defensive squads are distinct; hockey is the closest to basketball in terms of player versatility, and even then a goalie has a completely different role from the rest.
LeBron couldn't do it alone in Cleveland, and he isn't doing it alone now. The owners have taken steps to quash the Superfriends model, and that could lead to more parity.
You could do it at the end of a TV contract. There is only one NBA to broadcast, and if Silver says "Here's what we have up for bid: 66 games", networks would still fall all over themselves to throw money at the NBA. Each game would actually mean more and be more contested, even the ones in November. More practice time would also lead to a better product. A better product would lead to higher ad rates and little loss of revenue.
imagine every team getting to the playoffs!....Pop's wet dream (he coult sit any starter for the entire regular season)
I pretty much surmised the same thing with the leading comment on that suggestion... "The owners would never agree to it..."
Parity is something the NBA doesnt want, simlpe as that.
Will the NBA ever allow coaches to ask for replays in order to see if a call is right or wrong?? No, they wont.
Why?
Becuase if they do that, the best team will win more often, and thats not something the NBA always wants.
Why not suspend a player for flopping X times?
Why some plays cant be reviewed?
Why some teams have to pay to sit starters and some dont?
Why cant the teams decide to approve a trade or not?
Why does Bonner even plays in the NBA?
Why, why, why...
is there a nice way of saying this is ridiculously stupid?
First four draft picks in 2013 are going to the East.
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