Race for 8 seed in NBA is a joke.

[TheShoe1010]

Another important element that the a lot of people in this thread are completely missing is that young teams need to learn how to win, especially in the playoffs. It's not realistic to expect a young team to go from the bottom of the standings to winning a championship overnight. It just doesn't happen that way. There needs to be progress.

Cleveland is really the only exception to this rule currently, but that team wasn't built organically.

I'm not supporting teams who make moves with total disregard for their future (Brooklyn and New York come to mind) when they are no where near a championship-caliber roster. But you can't convince me that young teams don't need to try to win in order to put themselves in a position to gain experience in meaningful basketball games.

But I would argue that playoff experience, even if they get blown off the floor, for teams like Utah or Minnesota (likely next year) are much more valuable than getting a pick 2-3 slots higher in the draft. Playoffs are important for every team participating in some way, shape or form, even if it's not realistic to believe that you can win a championship.

[Sark]

Reducing the amount of playoff teams from 16 to 8 would not only make the playoffs more competitive, but it would also make the regular season more competitive...of course it will never happen, but I wish it did.

So you want less basketball? Ok.

Then when the season is over you had better not be one of those people that says "when is the season starting; off season is too long".

[Zaschrona]

Currently it is. What we really need are hard salary caps, they would really help the league to be much more competitive and interesting. It is a joke because NBA salary cap allows to build superteams. We don't need superteams, it is not worth to wait all season long for 2/3 interesting playoff series. GSW still would be able to build what they did, but they would have to lose Barnes and Ezeli this year. Deservedly, they are too good longterm. One Ezeli or Barnes doesn't do too much for them, for bad teams they would be a great help. And, it is a complete joke Tristan Thompson can get 3/4 of what Kevin Love gets and Clevelend is able to pay them both in addition to LeBron, Kyrie and Shumpert. Look at NHL or NFL. The best teams have to say goodbye to some of their best players, because they get deservedly paid. And after that it keeps the league way more competitive.

NBA needs to do this:
1. Hard salary cap, with no exceptions as they only create loop-holes and allow to create unneeded superteams way more easily.
2. Bigger maximum contracts for top players.
3. Bring in better options to re-negotiate contracts.
4. Bring in more teams - at lest 32, it is a joke that more than half of the teams can play in the playoffs, but it is in reality to impossible to think about cutting some games. The ideal number would be 36 teams for me - we have cities in USA/Canada that are able to support new franchises, it would bring down the percentage of teams that play playoffs under 50% and it would allow to create a more honest schedule for all teams. The quality of the league would be still at least similar like we have now, if one of the best players of CLE, LAC, OKC, GSW, HOU, SAS and MIA would have to play for one of these teams - as they wouldn't be able to pay them. And role players than can play the league are everywhere.
5. Change schedule and bring more games in the world - if we have 36 teams than all teams play 2 times with each other, 2 times with the other 5 teams from their division and the last 2 games each team play on a neutral venue - NBA really needs to show itself around the world. How great it would be if Valanciunas could play a game or two in Lithuania, Dirk in Germany, Kristaps in Latvia, Gortat in Poland, Bogut in Australia and so on? It would be amazing. Or NBA could show teams with no international stars in new markets like China, Japan or in cities in USA/Canada that have no franchise. For myself, I would love to watch a few games in Europe each year.
6. Change the playoffs - top 2 teams from every divisions get in plus another 4 teams as wild-cards. Seed teams according to their record. If the best teams are a little bit worse than now, the earlier rounds would be more interesting than now. The latter could be better too, we don't need conferences in today's league.
7. Make D-League true farm league. After all NBA teams have their own D-League team, link D-League to NBA way more closely than now - every team should be able to own all players in their own D-League team - max 15 players in NBA, max 15 in D-League. Create injury reserve for NBA - when a player is out for more than a week than the team gets an extra slot. Bring in two-way contracts to NBA. All D-league players should get minimum NBA contracts, but if they are sent down, if they have two-way contract, they should get only a debatable portion of the salary they should get in NBA. Players on rookie contracts could be sent up/down freely, older players could be sent their only when they go through waivers if no other NBA team selects them. This would bring in a completely new and easier way of developing talents, exciting, not too costly, teams could prepare players to play in their system, could afford to bring in projects they mostly now have to go to play to the world. The quality of D-League would go way higher than it is right now. 5 rounds draft would be possible. 1080 jobs, instead of 450 in gives rights now to basketball players. More players from the world would come to the league to play. It could be a great way for young players to enjoy an expience of play-offs too.
8. Do summer league more interesting. Why not having a one-game bracket competition in summer with all teams of young players taking the part after a few games to make the seeding. That would be so cool.
9. Allow teams to draft players out of HS, if they don't want to go to college, but allow them to play only the D-League for the first season.
10. ASG competly sucks in current format. Create a tournament when all 6 divisions create a team + bring in Rookies and Sophomores teams. Create a bracket and play it on ASG Sunday - 15 mins per game, give money to winner of every match. Replace shooting stars challenge with HORSE. Replace Rising Star Challenge with 1 on 1 bracket challenge.

[roc]

People are making fun of the OP but he is 100% right. Oakland A's GM Billy Beane once made the comment that "Your team either has to be rebuilding for something special or be on the verge of something special.To be in between is foolish." Being an 8th seed in the playoffs with no franchise player in place is completely pointless. A team needs to either have a franchise player in place or draft very high in the lottery to get a franchise player. If they don't, they'll never win a championship. They'll never be on the verge of being something special. Sure, the Spurs were able to land Kawhi Leonard at 15 but that was a once in a blue moon type thing. It'll be a while before another player of that caliber comes along who is available that late in the draft.

There are plenty of great players that got drafted even lower than that (The Spurs even have a couple more on their team with Parker and Ginobli). Ben Wallace was not even drafted FTM.

Current players that perhaps could reach Kawhi level but drafted even lower... Draymond, Giannis, Middleton, and perhaps others. Time will tell.

[MotownMadness]

It's almost just as hard to out tank other teams at the end of a season as it is trying to battle to get into the playoffs. I am way more excited this year taking a young team to the playoffs then to be tanking. I've seen first hand what a losing culture can do to a franchise. And it's not worth the gamble of trying to get lucky and get the #1 pick and drafting a superstar.

I don't think our squad will ever develop into a title contender but winning titles are extremely hard to do so putting all your money into only that is foolish. I would much rather be entertained by watching my team compete then sit and be garbage on purpose hoping to get lucky in the lottery and still losing cause the franchise is now just a losing culture. Somewhere we've got lost in all this championship or bust instead of just enjoying the game itself.

[NZB2323]

As an 6th seed the Rockets won it all in 95. As an 8th seed the Knicks made it to the NBA finals in 99. As a 6th seed the Rockets made it to the NBA finals in 81. You can have success in the playoffs as a lower seed, and there have been some super entertaining games in the first round, not to mention valuable playoff experience for young players.

As a member of the 8th seed, Michael Jordan scored 63 points in the playoffs, as an 8th seed we got to see the Nuggets upset the Sonics and Warriors upset the Mavs. The Shaq and Kobe Lakers would have missed the playoffs in 2003. We wouldn't have seen teams like the 08 Celtics pushed to 7 games, the 2014 Spurs pushed to 7 games, or the 03 Pistons come back after being down 3-1. We wouldn't have seen the 09 Bulls-Celtics series that set the record for most overtime games. We wouldn't have gotten to see Steph Curry and Klay Thompson battle the Clippers to 7 games before becoming a powerhouse. We would have missed Kobe in the playoffs in between the Shaq and Gasol years.

Furthermore, the #4 vs. #5 seed is usually a great, competitive series.

[Birth of the Cool]

There's essentially no point to pro sports at all apart from entertainment value.

People like to make the playoffs because of the entertainment value.

Not super complicated.

Yes. Spot on.

The only people that would take OP's ridiculous idea seriously are people that are matter of fact way to serious about Sports and are currently or in the future will be one of those insane parents shouting at their son/daughter, coach, ref at the little league tournament.

Why would any basketball fan want less basketball?!? An extension of the OP's thinking then is anytime I really bad team is scheduled to play an elite team during the regular season they should just cancel the game because what's the point, the bad team is pretty much going to lose every time.

When the Raptors first made the playoffs and got swept by the Knicks did I as a Raptors fan, as an NBA fan say well gee whiz what was the point of all that...nope...I was excited to watch every game...after the sweep I was excited about my team's future...it made me even more intensely a fan of the Raptors and I loved seeing T-Mac and Vince play on the big stage even for a moment. Then the next year when we had some history with the Knicks and beat them in game 5 at MSG well that was amazing and the fact that the Raptors fell short in the last second of game 7 vs 76ers the following round and that no one was really expected to beat the Lakers didn't diminish my interest in the playoffs or my team. Every time the Raptors have made the playoffs have been special. You talk to your family about it, your friends, your co-workers. It brings a City together sometimes in ways that are much easier than more divisive things like politics, etc.

Also, people love the underdog story - be it the unlikely Rockets first championship run or the Baron Davis led upset of the mighty Mavs. People still remember those series. Those moments.