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I'm watching Western Conference games right now and the commentators just went on a big rant about how the Warriors or Nuggets will have 50 wins and be left out of the playoffs while weak Eastern teams will be in. They also pointed out that the 50 win team that misses the playoff could win the lottery and what a travesty that would be.

As a fan of the current last team in the East, I'm a little biased. It is clear that the 9th place team in the East is better than us. Their record would finish 4th in the East. Outside of Atlanta getting bumped what else would change? Actually not much in the way of teams. Portland would be tied with Toronto for the last playoff spot. If Toronto wins the tiebreaker (they split during regular season) then we would have 9 West teams and 7 East teams. Not much of a difference. If Portland wins the tie we have 10 West and 6 East and budding TRAVEL nightmare.

In that case the round one matchups:
Boston vs Portland
Detroit vs Philadelphia
NO vs Washington
LA vs Cleveland
Utah vs Golden St.
San Antonio vs Denver
Houston vs Dallas
Orlando vs Phoenix

So LA/CLE and Orlando/Phoenix and Boston/Portland would have cross country travel in round 1.

Boston would likely get Phoenix in round 2. If they win there, they could have LA or Utah in round 3. In the championship they could face Detroit, New Orleans, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Washington, Denver, or Philadelphia.

So it's possible that a team like Boston would have to play 4 cross country series or 3 and then a local Final (if they can win with that much travel). At the same time Houston or Dallas might be so lucky as to never have to travel outside their division until the Finals with the longest road trip being New Orleans.

My reason for posting this is just to say its an unusual year. A very good team will get screwed, but people should be careful with their simple solutions to the problem. Most every season 2 teams will change places for a 9-7 split with the most extreme cases resulting in a 10-6 split. Some seasons nothing would change except the matchups. Every year under an all league system long travel happens in the early rounds. Under the system most talking heads are yelling for multiple teams will have the chance to get screwed by uneven travel every year.

I don't remember who it was exactly but one commentator made a pretty interesting point a couple weeks ago. For all the bitching and moaning about the 9th team in the west not making the playoffs, when was the last time that the general basketball populace cared this much about the end of the regular season? Its not just fans of the individual teams, its everyone which is actually great for the league.

Beyond that, its not some great injustice. This is the standard format in professional sports. We are talking about the 9th best team in a 16 team conference. Does anyone know when the last time the lowest seeded team won the finals? No? Never.

I'm not losing much sleep over this travesty.

I have another argument.

You can't say "if they were in the East" because they aren't. Bottomline, if the Hawks Raptors, Magic or Wizards played exclusviely in the West, they would play a style that fits their roster all the time. Because they have to play so many grind it out teams in the East, its leads to more losses.

Teams like the Warriors are getting to play their style because it matches up out west. Change coast and the records would not be the same.

Blah blah IF THEY WERE IN THE EAST!!

I personally don't think Golden State or Denver could beat the Hawks in a series.

Even tough they have more wins they've had their chances just like anyone else. What do folks want? Move the team? Get realignment and have National and American confernces?

Yeah- I think that people miss out on the fact that having good teams miss the playoffs makes the regular season more exciting. Actually the idea I love for baseball is to add an extra wildcard team- but then the 2 wildcards have a 1 game playoff and the winner of that game advances to the playoffs. Then it would just matter again who won the division so there would be real races between the redsox and yankees again, not like this year where boston couldn't have cared any less whether they won the division or won the wildcard.

killbuckner wrote:Yeah- I think that people miss out on the fact that having good teams miss the playoffs makes the regular season more exciting. Actually the idea I love for baseball is to add an extra wildcard team- but then the 2 wildcards have a 1 game playoff and the winner of that game advances to the playoffs. Then it would just matter again who won the division so there would be real races between the redsox and yankees again, not like this year where boston couldn't have cared any less whether they won the division or won the wildcard.

I like that idea for baseball.

im still laughing about the idiot that buried an ortiz jersey underneath the new yankee stadium.

All I know is the Hawks beat most of the teams going to the Western Conf playoffs this season.