Race for 8 seed in NBA is a joke.

[King of Canada]

Tell that to the 1999 Knicks

[jbk1234]

Ask a team like the Kings how meaningless a playoff appearance is. Also, the line between treadmilling and building is a lot fuzzier than people make it out to be. Sometimes all it take is finding a sleeper late in the first round, the right FA signing, or the correct trade to cross over. Success begets success. Better FAs take a harder look.

[zeebneeb]

This is why the first round used to be 5 games.

I honestly believe the first round should be three games, the second 5, and the last 2 rounds 7 games.

All 7 games series for each round is absurd.

A shorter series introduces more randomness and makes it more likely the lower seed will win though.

exactly

That's what makes it awesome. 7 game series are nigh impossible for a lower seeded team to win but a 3 game series?

Hoo-boy. Anything can happen.

Besides that, the less games played the more players will bring it. No conserving energy or coasting for a few games if it's a long series.

DO OR DIE.

It's what makes one game series so baddass.

[WarriorsEFC]

You are absolutely right. I'm sure the last 4 years as a 76ers fan was much more entertaining.

Actually, yes they have been! That is what people on this forum who don't like/understand the Hinkie method don't get. I would 1000000% take the 76ers team of the last 3 years over the waste of playoff years of the 2000s. While we suck, it is fun to see the young guys & to see the potential of the future. That is a major problem of the NBA. What is the difference between winning 40 games & losing in the first round & winning 10 games? Both = no title, except the 10 win team has 100% better chance to get a franchise changing player in the off-season.

To be honest... the last 3 years have been a waste too.

You've got one guy that gets into fights at nightclubs.
Another one that spent his entire first year injured on twitter trying to get a date with a popstar and acting like a 12 year old... and then getting fat.
And then you've got another guy that destroys rental properties and lives in the house like he is still in the slums.

If that's a future for you... god help the 76ers. You deserve to pull 16th in the lottery.

[TheShoe1010]

As a fan, I disagree. Playoff games are great for fans and 1-8 matchups have produced a lot of really entertaining basketball over the years. Denver/Seattle, GS/Dallas, New York/Miami, etc. Even if the #1 seed wins 90% of the time, most of the time we'll get one or two really entertaining games out of the series. Playoff basketball, to me, is just fun to watch.

This year it doesn't matter who gets the #8 seed out West, but that's kind of an anomaly. We don't usually have a team as dominant as GS is this year.

Plus, I'm not really of the school of thought that teams should blatantly throw away seasons for picks. Developing young talent for the future? Sure, but the goal should at least to be competitive. But that's not an argument for this thread.

[mtron929]

I think some of you need to realize that the default state of having 16 teams in the playoffs does not have to seem natural. In fact, it is not natural to have this many team (~half of the league) in the playoffs. I suspect that if it had been a 8 team playoff series for the last 10-20 years, the same fans who defend having the 8 seed would be outraged at the idea of adding the 8 seed into the playoff mix.

[payton2kemp]

You are absolutely right. I'm sure the last 4 years as a 76ers fan was much more entertaining.

Actually, yes they have been! That is what people on this forum who don't like/understand the Hinkie method don't get. I would 1000000% take the 76ers team of the last 3 years over the waste of playoff years of the 2000s. While we suck, it is fun to see the young guys & to see the potential of the future. That is a major problem of the NBA. What is the difference between winning 40 games & losing in the first round & winning 10 games? Both = no title, except the 10 win team has 100% better chance to get a franchise changing player in the off-season.

To be honest... the last 3 years have been a waste too.

You've got one guy that gets into fights at nightclubs.
Another one that spent his entire first year injured on twitter trying to get a date with a popstar and acting like a 12 year old... and then getting fat.
And then you've got another guy that destroys rental properties and lives in the house like he is still in the slums.

If that's a future for you... god help the 76ers. You deserve to pull 16th in the lottery.

This confuses the outcome with the plan. Had the ping pong balls bounced Philly's way (the most likely outcome), they have KAT and we are all thinking about the assets they have to build around him. Keep in mind Philly wanted Russell and really liked KP, but KP wouldn't work out for them, so it was pretty hard for Hinkie to take two flyers in a row--he went with Okafur because he was the same pick and was somewhat pressured to do so. The Lakers are not trying to be terrible (though Byron Scott made sure that is moot) and decided it made sense to put your star player with the biggest idiot in the league and play videographer. Sure Philly could have babysat Okafur more but hindsight is 20-20. The Lakers have Kobe and like him or love him, they love him and didn't think that he should be babysitting Russell (or couldn't convince him to).

There is something to "success begets success", but being an 8th seed is not success. Star FA want to go to contenders, not 8th seeds.

If there is one flyer you could have argued for Philly it would have been to take Giannis, but 14 other teams didn't do that either. Noel might not be a star (and probably won't be), but he was a better pick than all of those guys. Other than Oladipo and Giannis the class was very weak, and it's not certain that those guys are going to be stars anyway.

Cleveland literally made one of the worst--if not the the worst--number one pick in history in 2003, yet its ineptitude turned into Wiggins, which turned into LeBron. It may sound counterfactual but sometimes doing the smart thing doesn't lead to the best outcome, but I'd rather have someone like Hinkie, who is following a legitimate plan, than a bunch of idiots trying to jack up gate revenues with two extra home games. Hinkie was transparent with his owners and they all agreed on the plan--they just threw him under the bus because of outside pressure.

Mitch Kupchak insisted on overpaying Kobe, which doomed the Lakers to the cellar. Kobe is great, people love to see him, but he hasn't been able to help a team get better for years because of wear-and-tear (and lost a pick that may very well go to Philly). Over the long run what matters is the number of rings and, outside of the Miami Heat, pretty much all of it starts with a crappy team lucking out in the draft (and even Miami lucked out with Wade 2004). The NBA, in order to try and stop this from happening again made it harder to build a team purely from FA so for most teams the only way to get a star is to draft one and hope he brings in some others along with him. Maybe it doesn't work out for Philly, but as stated before there was almost a 0% chance of that happening when they were on the fringe of the playoffs, but now they have assets that make that possible.

Look at the best teams in the league like GS, SA, OKC, CLE. At best a FA signing was icing on the cake (LeBron/Aldridge), but doesn't happen without some solid draft picks like Steph, Klay, Draymond, Kawhi, Westbrook, KD, etc. Also, second round picks are generally not valuable but once in a while they really pan out like Draymond or Manu.

While Hinkie might have been rough around the edges and needed to learn a bit more on the job it's absurd to say he didn't have a solid plan. Everyone keeps confusing a solid plan that still depends on luck with a bulletproof one where there is zero element of chance.

[MartinToVaught]

OP is right, going all-out for a low playoff seed is pointless. The only exception is if you have a team like OKC a while back or the Warriors a few years ago, full of young talent that just needs playoff experience. The problem is that most teams that jockey for position at the end of the playoff table are full of mediocre and/or old players with no room to improve.

This isn't the NHL or MLB, where the playoffs are a crapshoot and a team like the 2012 Kings (8th seed, technically under .500 if you add the regulation and OT losses together) or the 2003 Marlins (4th seed in the NL, snuck in as a wildcard) can catch fire and win it all. It isn't even the NFL, which has far less parity than advertised but still occasionally crowns teams like the 2011 Giants (9-7) as champs. The lowest seed to ever win a championship in the NBA was the sixth-seeded Rockets in '95, it only happened once, and even they were repeat champions. That's why people have to reach for one-off anomalies like the Nuggets upsetting the Sonics or the Warriors beating the Mavs to try to argue against the OP, while ignoring all the 8th seeds that have been swept out of the playoffs unceremoniously. The reality is, in the NBA, a treadmill team is far better off admitting that they're on the treadmill, getting off, and starting from scratch than hoping for a miracle that will never happen.

People bash Hinkie's model, but let's be real here. It's easy and comfortable for owners to sign mediocre players, win 40 games and collect some extra revenue from their postseason one-and-done. It's significantly harder to rebuild a franchise from scratch the right way without trying to cut corners, especially when you get unlucky in the draft. But the hard road is more likely to yield championships than the easy road.

Fans complain about about the "championship or bust" mindset, but then they complain about owners and players who value money over everything else and whine that today's players are too friendly and not competitive enough. I don't get it. Is the "championship or bust" mindset a bad thing, or is it a great thing that's sorely lacking from today's league? People need to make up their minds.

Personally, I think the "championship or bust" approach is situational. As a long-suffering fan of one of the worst franchises in sports, I do think it's "championship or bust," because a title would validate all the years I spent watching Olowokandi **** the bed, Andre Miller quit on the team, the Odom/Miles/Brand team fall apart before ever getting a chance to win anything, Dunleavy screw the franchise out of its best chance ever for a deep playoff run with his horrible coaching moves, Danny Manning's injury, Shaun Livingston's injury, the Water Main Game, Blake Griffin's injuries, etc. It's easy to be complacent when you have a trophy case full of Larry O'Briens and rafters weighed down with banners. It's a lot harder when your team has never even played in a conference finals in nearly 50 years of existence as a franchise.

[PickMeUpASixer]

There's arguments for both sides. Yes you can get enjoyment out of making the playoffs even if you don't have a chance, yes occasionally 8th/7th seeds knock off one of the top seeds. Only one team wins the championship each year, so to act like the season is wasted for 29 others is not really fair, or logical in the context of sports.

However, ask most Minnesota fans, would you trade KAT off of your team if it meant your team could be the 8th seed this year? Go ahead and throw in Terry Rozier as well. They technically would have a chance at beating GS, and technically they would have a shot at the 'chip this year. I think most Timberwolves fans would say "no thanks, I'd rather keep Towns and try to build a powerful contender with him"

That's obviously an extreme example, but as much bashing as the sixers got in this thread, you see fans post all the time about "blowing it up" trading a useful but aging player for picks or prospects. We see levels of this with all teams, including the ones that turn into contenders, and the ones that miss in the draft and remain terrible. The league's rules about max contracts, salary cpas, rookie scale contracts all play into the strategy of building through the draft.

I think that if you can't enjoy rooting for your team without them being a championship contender, you probably should watch a different sport, NFL or NHL in particular. That said, it would be nice to have more competitive playoffs, but the owners will never relinquish playoff game revenue. SO I actually think that MORE teams should make the playoffs, but shorten some series.

The top 4 seeds of each conference get byes. The next 8 seeds in each conference play in the "wildcard" round in 5 game series. That means that the (formerly) lowly 8th seed, who is now wondering whether they should just tank to get into the lottery, is now looking at HCA in a playoff series, maybe that incentivizes them to put more stock into the end of the season.

The new "2nd" round is also 5 game series, with the winners of the wildcard round advancing without reseeding.

The conference semifinals are also best of 5. However, the conference finals and the NBA finals are best of 7, as these are "championships" and come with trophies and even rings.

Owners go from 60-85 playoff games to 72-121 playoff games. Teams without stars can still have some playoff success, even having a better chance to knock off the top teams with shorter playoff series, and you can still have epic conference finals and finals series of 7 games.

While top teams may complain about having only a best of 5 in the early rounds, they are also more likely to be facing a weaker team due to an early upset, so it balances out in some ways. Also with an additional 4 teams making the playoffs, teams that are talented but had injuries during the season (think 2014-15 thunder), can make it in as a 10,11,12 seed and battle their way up.

[mtlraps]

Why not just have the best 4 teams make the playoffs with this logic

What reason is there not to have the best four teams make the playoffs? It works fine for college football and it's worked very well in baseball for many years. There's only been two teams ranked lower than a #3 seed that has won the NBA championship. They are the 1969 Celtics (#4 seed) and the 1995 Rockets (#6 seed). If your team is ranked lower than a #4 seed, it's a virtual impossibility that they'll go on to win the championship. So what's the point of being there? This isn't college where schools are just happy to make the NCAA tournament. These are the pros with the best teams and players in the world. There's no such thing as a moral victory. There's just winners and losers.

Why even bother with a playoff at that point. Best record after 82 is the champion..

[NBAfan3024]

Why not just have the best 4 teams make the playoffs with this logic

What reason is there not to have the best four teams make the playoffs? It works fine for college football and it's worked very well in baseball for many years. There's only been two teams ranked lower than a #3 seed that has won the NBA championship. They are the 1969 Celtics (#4 seed) and the 1995 Rockets (#6 seed). If your team is ranked lower than a #4 seed, it's a virtual impossibility that they'll go on to win the championship. So what's the point of being there? This isn't college where schools are just happy to make the NCAA tournament. These are the pros with the best teams and players in the world. There's no such thing as a moral victory. There's just winners and losers.

Why even bother with a playoff at that point. Best record after 82 is the champion..

Yeah

Why not just remove the whole playoffs and remove conferences and have just one league table and the winner over 82 games wins the league.

[Yankeeknickfan]

Is TC Sam Hinkie?

[thejigglyroom]

We should just scrape the season and have every teams best 2K player compete in a 2K tournament. They could broadcast it on MLG network so all the nerds/geeks would finally get into sports and not get beat up by all the jocks at school because they would now be viewed as peers/equals. This would also make it easier for one of us Realgm posters to make the league because I'm pretty confident we are all better video game players then these clowns.

Pros:
No one gets hurt.
The entire season would be done in a weekend.
Teams could go back to drafting teens again because they all play video games.
All the stadiums could now be used to host Beyonce and Kreayshawn concerts.

Cons:
Yeah, I can't think of any.

[Nowascki]

First round series can be pretty fun:

[YouTube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxMF9Wtq78U[/YouTube]

[F N 11]

What kind of basketball fan wants less basketball?

Im telling you man..

[MeCarlos24]

So the majority of prior champs have been a top 3 seed. I would be interested in seeing how many of those teams were a 4 seed or lower in prevous seasons leading to the championships. You really cant put a value on playoff experience, it can mold help a team into greatness.

[TheShoe1010]

I'm really amazed at some of the logic here.

Have you guys ever actually played basketball? Was your attitude to not even take the court unless you were considered the favored team?

From the perspective of a fan, why would you complain about extra basketball? Have you never been entertained by a first or second round playoff game? Really weird to me.

[LivingLegend]

The race matters because at the end of the day, whoever makes the 8 seed makes a whole lot of $$$$$ for their franchise. They dont care that they will get stopped out by the Cavs or Warriors. They care that it creates more revenue and marketing strategies for the teams 'brand'.


Remember....the NBA is a business.

[JLiv]

If you take away half of the playoff spots, you may as well cut half of the teams in the league! Posters that think like this annoy me. 95% of sports fans HAVE NO IDEA WHAT A TREADMILL TEAM IS! Who cares if a team is a treadmill team, or doesn't have a great shot at actually winning the title? Players still have to play the game, and those 95% of fans will be actively buying their tickets.If you have ever played anything, you know that nothing is a given. Why would a business (the NBA) get rid of a big source of revenue and fan interest? I'm watching more games than ever since my team has been fighting for a playoff spot.

Eliminating playoff spots is like the government banning people in the middle class because they aren't rich - while forcing more people to be poor.

It makes no sense. Your view on the NBA as a whole is depressing.

[MartinToVaught]

Every time I read through threads like these I am amazed by the difference in sports-perception between the US-fans and those in the rest of the World. A lot of fans here appear to perceive everything besides winning a title as a deception, which comes across as very weird for me as a European. I'm not sure whether it's due to the more competitive, liberal nature of US-society or because sports (ironically) is set up extremely socialistic in the US, with drafts and salary caps.. For instance, a European football fan from a smaller team could celebrate a 5th place as a title, without worrying about never winning an actual championship. And I would have preferred the Wolves to have been swept by the Warriors in the first round over another **** draft pick any day. Even if KAT hadn't been on the roster.

American sports are different. We don't have relegation. We don't have the "everyone gets a trophy" mentality of having a league title, an FA Cup, a Europa League title and a Champions League title up for grabs every year.

European fans can say, "well, we sucked, but at least we didn't get relegated, so we can try again next year." Or "we didn't win our league, but we can still win this tournament and put a trophy in our case." In American sports, the only fully satisfying outcomes are either winning it all, or getting a high draft pick and the hope for the future that comes with it. Anything in between, you can reach for moral victories, but deep down, everyone knows it sucks to watch their team's season end without a ring or a high draft pick to show for it.

There's pros and cons to each model. Overall, I feel like it's easier to be a European sports fan, but in terms of the product as a whole, the American model is better. It's cutthroat and competitive, but not to such a degree that a team like the Sixers can't try again next year because they got demoted to the D-League.