LeBron James is not a fan of possibly reseeding the NBA playoffs
LeBron James stated his thoughts about the NBA potentially reseeding the playoffs in the future.
LeBron James let the rest of the league know on Wednesday that he was not in support of NBA commissioner Adam Silver altering the NBA’s playoff format.
Silver announced over NBA All-Star weekend that the league could pivot to seeding all 16 playoff teams based on record, eliminating the two-conference (East vs. West) format.
The NBA’s current 16 team playoff format has been around since 1984.
Via ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, James had the following to say about possibly changing the playoff format:
"“It’s cool to mess around with the All-Star Game — we proved you can do that — but let’s not get too crazy about the playoffs. You have Eastern Conference and you have Western Conference. You have Eastern Conference champions, you have guys from the Eastern Conference that win the big dance and sometimes you have it from the West as well.”"
The top eight teams out of each conference are seeded based upon their record in the regular season. The higher seeded team is awarded home-court advantage. Silver told CBSSports.com’s Chris Barnewall, “you would like to have a format where your two best teams are ultimately going to meet in the Finals.”
Would this really change anything?
I don’t really understand this clamoring for a change in the current format. There is no guarantee ever that the two best teams will meet any season, no matter how you changed it.
You’re still going to have upsets, injuries and unforeseen things that happen that cause top contenders to fail. That’s the beauty of sports.
It’s actual reality TV because we can’t always predict what will happen 100% of the time. Just like we can’t guarantee the two best teams will always play in the NBA finals.
The biggest problem the NBA faces with the new proposed format would be the travel aspect and scheduling. Silver addressed this with the media:
"”I’ve said in the past, the obstacle is travel, and it’s not tradition in my mind, at least. It’s that as we’ve added an extra week to the regular season, as we’ve tried to reduce the number of back-to-backs, that we are concerned about teams crisscrossing the country in the first round, for example.”"
The 60’s Boston Celtics, 80’s Celtics, Detroit Pistons, and Los Angeles Lakers, 90’s Chicago Bulls, 2000’s Lakers and San Antonio Spurs, along with the Miami Heat and Golden State Warriors most recently are teams who have had dominant stretches and have been apart of the NBA fabric since its inception.
It would not be a great idea to break up rivalries that have went back decades specifically linked to conferences. I agree with LeBron that changes to the NBA All-Star game can happen because we need to make it more competitive.
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However, the NBA playoff structure does not need changes. Don’t fix something that isn’t broken.