North vs South

[wegotthabeet]

*warning offseason type thread.

eventually the NBA will expand to 32 teams. the expansion teams will most likely be Seattle & Las Vegas. this means one current Western Conference team needs to move to the East to balance things out. Minnesota, Memphis and New Orleans could all conceivably move East, the problem is which team? Minnesota is probably the most logical, but also the furthest west. should the NBA consider just getting rid of divisions and creating a North and South Conference instead? Seattle would join the North and Las Vegas would join the South.

North
New York
Brooklyn
Boston
Toronto
Philadelphia
Washington
Detroit
Chicago
Cleveland
Indiana
Milwaukee
Minnesota
Utah
Denver
Portland
Seattle

South
LA Lakers
LA Clippers
Golden State
Sacramento
Las Vegas
Phoenix
Houston
Dallas
OKC
San Antonio
Memphis
New Orleans
Miami
Orlando
Atlanta
Charlotte

[Nate505]

The problem with North/South conferences is that if the schedule is unbalanced towards conferences, like it is now, it doesn't help much in terms of travel, let alone there would still be big time zone shifts between the conferences.

To me if you add Seattle and Vegas as teams, Minnesota goes East. It might technically make a little less geographic sense, but Memphis is still relatively close to the Southwest teams, where Minnesota is close to nothing.

[GeorgeMarcus]

I think the problem of time zones is too significant for a change like this

[LFAHFN22]

I don't think this is fair. The southern teams would be able to play on assfault due to warmer weather.

Jokes aside, your proposition would add unnecessary travel and doesn't appear to solve any significant issue.

[cam24thomas]

In Australia we don't even have conferences.

[Tor_Raps]

West and East help because of different time zones... north and south don't help with anything.

[Knightfall]

I'm not against realignment but would propose it in a different way. ABC/NBC American basketball conference vs National basketball conference. This isn't the 50s -80s anymore. Teams have private planes and full staffs and elite hotel rooms to stay now. This makes travel much easier.

[Domejandro]

Gotta be honest, looking at the map, I really don't understand why dividing teams by North and South makes sense. It would lead to an insane increase in travel, it doesn't make sense at all. Moving Minnesota to the Eastern Conference pretty comfortably solves (actually improves) the issue of travel.

[NyKnicks1714]

And why are they even called conferences? Are the teams all gathering in a convention center and attending basketball lectures and workshops? No.

[wegotthabeet]

In Australia we don't even have conferences.

this is the way.

[wegotthabeet]

Gotta be honest, looking at the map, I really don't understand why dividing teams by North and South makes sense. It would lead to an insane increase in travel, it doesn't make sense at all. Moving Minnesota to the Eastern Conference pretty comfortably solves (actually improves) the issue of travel.

for Minnesota.

[WillyJakkz]

That's not how maps work

[NyKnicks1714]

Important conference vs. Flyover conference:

[Domejandro]

Gotta be honest, looking at the map, I really don't understand why dividing teams by North and South makes sense. It would lead to an insane increase in travel, it doesn't make sense at all. Moving Minnesota to the Eastern Conference pretty comfortably solves (actually improves) the issue of travel.

for Minnesota.

For literally every team in the Western Conference. Having multiple Western Conference teams fly out to Minneapolis twice a year adds unnecessary amounts of travel time to them as well. There is no world where Portland, Denver, and Utah should be forced to be in the same division as Minnesota.

Ignoring all of that, there’s still zero justification that I see for splitting conferences between north and south.

[Lalouie]

we have planes but north/south still stretches the travel distance east west which then doubles from 1200mi to 2400mi

[zimpy27]

When it comes to 32 teams you just have to get rid divisions entirely..

2 conferences of 16
You play teams in your conference 3 times (45 games)
You play teams in the opposing conference 2 times (32 games)
You play 4-5 games in the midseason tournament.

East conference: SEA, LV, POR, SAC, GSW, LAL, LAC, PHX, UTA, DEN, OKC, HOU, SAS, DAL, MEM, NOP
West conference: MIA, ORL, ATL, CHO, WSH, PHI, BKN, NYK, BOS, CHI, CLE, TOR, DET, MIL, IND, MIN

[NZB2323]

Keep East vs. West as conferences and move Minnesota West, but then have North, East, South, and West divisions.

North
Timberwolves
Bucks
Bulls
Pacers
Pistons
Raptors
Cavs
76ers

East
Celtics
Knicks
Nets
Wizards
Hornets
Hawks
Heat
Magic

West
SuperSonics
Blazers
Kings
Warriors
Clippers
Lakers
Suns
Vegas

South
Spurs
Rockets
Mavs
Pelicans
Grizzlies
Thunder
Nuggets
Jazz

[shi-woo]

It could work, but the two conferences might fight over the California teams, and that could start a war or something.

[dhsilv2]

The goal needs to be to minimize travel time and time zone crossings. So no this doesn't make any sense.

[ThunderBolt]

There isn't a perfect solution because of too many large, sparsely populated western states