NBA Commissioner Discusses Possible Playoff Seeding Compromise

On Saturday, NBA commissioner Adam Silver discussed a possible modification to the current playoff seeding system used by the league that could pit the two best NBA teams against one other in the Finals without needing to change the number of teams that qualify from each conference for the postseason.

Due to a big imbalance of late in the league between the two conferences (Eastern, Western), there have been calls by some to take the best 16 teams each season regardless of which conference they play in. On Saturday Silver spoke of a possible compromise.

Silver spoke about still keeping the top eight teams from the two conferences, but then seeding those 16 teams from top to bottom once the regular season ends. That way, if the top two teams happened to be from the same conference they could meet in the Finals.

Silver added that it needed to be looked at more and investigated to see how it best could be worked out although the idea of having the two best teams in the NBA regardless of the conference they play in, meeting for the NBA title is good.

As is the case with other proposals of seeding from 1 to 16, a travel issue comes into play. With the playoff format currently used in all playoff rounds of 2-2-1-1-1, a long first round or second round series between two teams on opposite coasts could make for an unfavorable situation.

In addition, it would require the schedule to be more balanced so that certain teams did not have a playoff qualifying advantage during the regular season.

Silver said more days might need to be added to the season to spread things out a bit more in order to deal with travel.

To make this change in the postseason format would need a minimum of 20 out of 30 teams to vote in favor of it. That was always considered big stumbling block that might prevent the top 16 teams from reaching the postseason, as five owners in the East would need to vote in favor of the change

The concept of Silver would allow for the same number of teams from each conference and a rebalancing of the regular season schedule.

No plans have been made to put this to a vote, but it is receiving more and more attention in the league’s front office and a vote could come about much sooner than one might think.