RealGM

Remember Melo?
Remember Deron?
Remember Brandon Roy?

Remember how we rejoiced, cos all the talent was going East? After the talent blood-letting, who thought our division would sport 4 teams currently making the playoffs (only division to do so)?

In addition we are the team who has to travel the furthest on average to get our buts kicked by our abnormally division rivals.

How will we end our 14 (assuming I counted correctly) inter division games?

I say 5-9.

It's always been like that and, if we were Chicago, LA or New York, it would have been fixed years ago. But we're Minnesota, so we travel twice as far to vs Portland (in our division) than we do to vs New York (in a different conference).

41-24 Northwest
32-33 Southwest
29-34 Pacific
-------------------------
34-30 Central
31-34 Southeast
27-39 Atlantic

We're easily the best division right now.

I thought we would be one of the worst this year. Northwest has HEART. Also shows that great teams have a system you can rely on. All those teams lost star players except OKC and they are still playing great basketball. I don't know how Denver wrecks people like they do.

Calinks wrote:I thought we would be one of the worst this year. Northwest has HEART. Also shows that great teams have a system you can rely on. All those teams lost star players except OKC and they are still playing great basketball. I don't know how Denver wrecks people like they do.

Denver certainly benefits from the high altitude. Portland has a great tradition, and Utah hasn't changed how they play in 25 years. Have to respect our division, well run organizations throughout and we are finally catching up. Hopefully.

Wolves travel to much and it needs to change but I'd be lying if I said I didn't like belonging to a higher echelon division and conference. Iron sharpens iron, if you can dominate this division you can take on any team. The NW is tough and you get a look at everything.

I don't know why I still have this pic, but...



fixed

Keep it up Utah. I want that pick in this year's draft. Hopefully they can hold off one of den/mem/lac/por and make the playoffs (If we can't sneak into that 8th seed). Then this year ight be one of those years it takes the equivalent of 50 wins in a full season to snag that 8th seed in the west. In the east we are a playoff team easily.

But yeah, I agree, Den/Por/Utah have all made smart moves to remain competetive when faced with franchise-killing challenges (deron and melo's free agency, roy's knee). Portland got Matthews and Crash Wallace for practically nothing. Denver struck gold with lawson and afflalo and are probably even better without Melo because they have a great coach in Karl and now that everyone is involved in the offense they are really hard to stop. Even Al Harrington is playing out of his mind this year.

Utah I am more skeptical about long term, but Corbin has them playing well.

cpfsf wrote:I don't know why I still have this pic, but...



fixed

Is PHX closer/farther than POR? If NBA just wanted an easy fix, that would be easiest

cpfsf wrote:I don't know why I still have this pic, but...



fixed

Who are the top relocation candidates? Sacramento and New Orleans come to mind, but who else? The West is faaaar too spread out

We could fix the NBA by going to 5 divisions with 6 teams each, just a little idea:

North
Minnesota
Milwaukee
Detroit
Chicago
Cleveland
Indiana

East
Toronto
Boston
New York
New Jersey
Washington
Philadelphia

South
Charlotte
Atlanta
Memphis
Orlando
Miami
New Orleans

West
Oklahoma City
Dallas
San Antonio
Houston
Phoenix
Denver

Pacific
Portland
Sacramento
Utah
Golden State
LA Clippers
LA Lakers

3 Home game + 3 Road games for each team in your division = 30 games
1 Home game + 1 Road game for each other team in league = 48 games

78 games total. Playoffs: Top team in each division advance plus next 7 highest seeds. Top 4 seeds get a first round bye.

1 vs. 8/9
4 vs. 5/12
&
2 vs. 7/10
3 vs. 6/11

I'd think they could make it interesting by having say teams go on extended road trips and home stands:
Take T'Wolves:

Week 1/2: East Away
Week 3/4: East Home
Week 5/6: North Away
Week 7/8: North Home
Week 9/10: South Away
Week 11/12: South Home
Week 13/14: North Away
Week 15/16: North Home
Week 17/18: West Away
Week 19/20: West Home
Week 21/22: North Away
Week 23/24: North Home
Week 25/26: Pacific Away
Week 27/28: Pacific Home

Obviously you could condense the schdule and play some back-to-backs but it would eliminate going across the country continuously and would seem to ease scheduling. Also make it more fun to watch for fans and the divisions create more natural rivalries.

^ That makes far too much sense. The NBA wouldn't even consider it.

[RCG] wrote:We could fix the NBA by going to 5 divisions with 6 teams each, just a little idea.

I like these both very much. cpfsf creates more regional rivalries to increase revenues while maintaining the NBA's 6 division system, and RCG amplifies it by setting it aside.

[RCG] wrote:We could fix the NBA by going to 5 divisions with 6 teams each, just a little idea:

North
Minnesota
Milwaukee
Detroit
Chicago
Cleveland
Indiana

East
Toronto
Boston
New York
New Jersey
Washington
Philadelphia

South
Charlotte
Atlanta
Memphis
Orlando
Miami
New Orleans

West
Oklahoma City
Dallas
San Antonio
Houston
Phoenix
Denver

Pacific
Portland
Sacramento
Utah
Golden State
LA Clippers
LA Lakers

3 Home game + 3 Road games for each team in your division = 30 games
1 Home game + 1 Road game for each other team in league = 48 games

78 games total. Playoffs: Top team in each division advance plus next 7 highest seeds. Top 4 seeds get a first round bye.

1 vs. 8/9
4 vs. 5/12
&
2 vs. 7/10
3 vs. 6/11

I'd think they could make it interesting by having say teams go on extended road trips and home stands:
Take T'Wolves:

Week 1/2: East Away
Week 3/4: East Home
Week 5/6: North Away
Week 7/8: North Home
Week 9/10: South Away
Week 11/12: South Home
Week 13/14: North Away
Week 15/16: North Home
Week 17/18: West Away
Week 19/20: West Home
Week 21/22: North Away
Week 23/24: North Home
Week 25/26: Pacific Away
Week 27/28: Pacific Home

Obviously you could condense the schdule and play some back-to-backs but it would eliminate going across the country continuously and would seem to ease scheduling. Also make it more fun to watch for fans and the divisions create more natural rivalries.

So 2 divisions in one conference and 3 in another? That wouldn't work.

WenningtonGuy wrote:So 2 divisions in one conference and 3 in another? That wouldn't work.

He's saying the benefits of this reorganization outweigh the need for conferences.

shrink wrote:

WenningtonGuy wrote:So 2 divisions in one conference and 3 in another? That wouldn't work.

He's saying the benefits of this reorganization outweigh the need for conferences.

I just think conferences add to the rival nature. For the most part, that is where the rivalries are made.

I had the 5 division idea a while back, if you guys remember. I would eliminate conferences all together.

WenningtonGuy wrote:I just think conferences add to the rival nature. For the most part, that is where the rivalries are made.

Conferences are completely arbitrary. Rivalries are most often established regionally.

Conferences don't mean anything except an easy way to set up playoffs and championship games. that can be easily worked around, though.



Don't we have this discussion every year?

shrink wrote:

WenningtonGuy wrote:So 2 divisions in one conference and 3 in another? That wouldn't work.

He's saying the benefits of this reorganization outweigh the need for conferences.

Exactly. You wouldn't need conferences, just the divisions. And the playoffs would work purely based on seeding of records.

Funkatron, if you had proposed that earlier on I don't want to steal any thunder. I like it!

[RCG] wrote:We could fix the NBA by going to 5 divisions with 6 teams each, just a little idea:

North
Minnesota
Milwaukee
Detroit
Chicago
Cleveland
Indiana

East
Toronto
Boston
New York
New Jersey
Washington
Philadelphia

South
Charlotte
Atlanta
Memphis
Orlando
Miami
New Orleans

West
Oklahoma City
Dallas
San Antonio
Houston
Phoenix
Denver

Pacific
Portland
Sacramento
Utah
Golden State
LA Clippers
LA Lakers

3 Home game + 3 Road games for each team in your division = 30 games
1 Home game + 1 Road game for each other team in league = 48 games

78 games total. Playoffs: Top team in each division advance plus next 7 highest seeds. Top 4 seeds get a first round bye.

1 vs. 8/9
4 vs. 5/12
&
2 vs. 7/10
3 vs. 6/11

I'd think they could make it interesting by having say teams go on extended road trips and home stands:
Take T'Wolves:

Week 1/2: East Away
Week 3/4: East Home
Week 5/6: North Away
Week 7/8: North Home
Week 9/10: South Away
Week 11/12: South Home
Week 13/14: North Away
Week 15/16: North Home
Week 17/18: West Away
Week 19/20: West Home
Week 21/22: North Away
Week 23/24: North Home
Week 25/26: Pacific Away
Week 27/28: Pacific Home

Obviously you could condense the schdule and play some back-to-backs but it would eliminate going across the country continuously and would seem to ease scheduling. Also make it more fun to watch for fans and the divisions create more natural rivalries.

To keep the schedule at 82 games, an easy thing to do would be to follow one of the NFLs schedule gimicks. If the T-Wolves finish 4th in their division, they would play the 4 other 4th place teams, two at home, two on the road.