It's time to blow up the NBA playoff system
Why let bad East teams keep some worthy West squads from postseason?
 H Rumph Jr. / AP file Samuel Dalembert, center, and the 76ers have just a .450 winning percentage but would be in the playoffs if the season ended today. |
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Just look at the standings. If the playoffs started today, the New Jersey Nets would be in the playoffs with a .441 winning percentage, and the Denver Nuggets would be out with a .593 winning percentage.
Also out would be the Portland Trail Blazers with a .517 winning percentage, while going to the dance would be the Philadelphia 76ers, who are blazing along at a .450 clip. In the East, the Wizards, who are one game under .500, are just about a lock for the playoffs.
This is a double whammy for the league and the teams involved. While teams like the Nets may benefit from two home games at playoff prices by making the playoffs, they don’t make the NBA draft lottery. But the Nuggets, who are one of the league’s better teams, do. The lottery and the draft are designed to make bad teams better. In this case, it makes a good team better and bad teams worse.
Better to just ditch the whole East-West thing and simply take the six division champions and then the next 10 best teams on winning percentage. That, at least, is fair, which is more than can be said of the current system.
At a minimum, adopt a rule that no team that can’t win at least as many games as it loses can get into the playoffs until all teams that can meet that simple test of mediocrity are in first. If there are any slots left, then let them go to the conference that has the fewest teams in the playoffs.
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