Cuban direct beneficiary of rule change...

[az1965]

Well, he drove the change and now he is going to benefit from it right away. If not for the rule change for the top four positions, Dallas would have to play San Antonio in the 2nd round. Now, it will be us, no thanks to Cuban!

My mini rant over...

 

[Griffin]

Well, that was sort of the point of the rule. Besides, would you rather play Utah in the second round? And finally, if the Suns want to win it all, they will need to beat the Spurs sooner or later. They can't hope for some other team to eliminate SA for them every year.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Everyone knew the rule was stupid so the league changed it. The change had nothing to do with Cuban although he was very outspoken with his critcism of it.

 

[azirish]

I'm not convinced there is any value in having divisions at all. Whenever I go to NBA.com for standings, I immediately switch to the conference listing.

I suspect that someday an Eastern Conference division is going to put somebody into the playoffs that is not in the top eight by their record. It will be a huge black eye for the NBA.

 

[az1965]

Why top four positions only then?? They should use all eight positioning in the same manner.

 

[az1965]

Well, that was sort of the point of the rule. Besides, would you rather play Utah in the second round?

The way regular meetings have gone, then probably no... but let's see how the final meeting goes.

And finally, if the Suns want to win it all, they will need to beat the Spurs sooner or later. They can't hope for some other team to eliminate SA for them every year.

Everyone benefits now and then from positioning, home court advantage, etc. so there is no harm if we try to benefit from an easier path. Because after all is said and done, no one will talk about the path it took to win the championship, it is that we won the championship!

 

[TheFallen49]

It SHOULD be all top eight seeds, who cares about division representation anymore?

When people start looking at teams like the Clippers tanking to avoid getting a HIGHER seed (thus playing Dallas in the first round in contrast to Denver) the rules need to be changed. So I guess you can 'blame' Cuban for that if you really want (and are desperate to find more reasons to hate him?) although he had no say in actually changing the rule and it's overall a good change for the league.

 

[jbeecham]

It SHOULD be all top eight seeds, who cares about division representation anymore?

I agree, It's crazy that a 5-8 seed could have home court advantage over a 1-4 seed because of the "division winners must be in the top 4" rule. Toronto has actually recovered to have a decent record, but how pathetic would it have been for a .500 or sub .500 team to be the #4 seed while a team with a winning record might've been left out of the playoffs.

If they still want to do something for the division winners then just guarantee them a playoff spot, but they'll still be ordered by record. Right now Cleveland has the 3rd best record in the east, but is in 5th. If they were actually put in the 3rd spot where they belong then they'd be matched up with an injury depleted Wizards team (missing Gilbert Arenas & Caron Butler), but instead Toronto will face the Wizards.

 

[Covert Rain]

For me, I want to see the best teams period. If the top 8 teams are in and a division winner from a pathetic conference doesn't, I have no problem with that. I want the best team not a team from a conference that doesn't have a shot in the playoffs.

 

[Griffin]

Everyone benefits now and then from positioning, home court advantage, etc. so there is no harm if we try to benefit from an easier path. Because after all is said and done, no one will talk about the path it took to win the championship, it is that we won the championship!

True, and we did benefit last season, even though we only had the third best record. But now with the rule change there is a way to guarantee that you will only have to play at most one of the other two top teams and that is by securing the best record. Anything short of that, and the path to championship gets a little harder.

I do agree that the rule makes division races a little bit pointless, and it was merely a stopgap measure that didn't really fix the underlying problem.

 

[az1965]

I agree, It's crazy that a 5-8 seed could have home court advantage over a 1-4 seed because of the "division winners must be in the top 4" rule. Toronto has actually recovered to have a decent record, but how pathetic would it have been for a .500 or sub .500 team to be the #4 seed while a team with a winning record might've been left out of the playoffs.

If they still want to do something for the division winners then just guarantee them a playoff spot, but they'll still be ordered by record. Right now Cleveland has the 3rd best record in the east, but is in 5th. If they were actually put in the 3rd spot where they belong then they'd be matched up with an injury depleted Wizards team (missing Gilbert Arenas & Caron Butler), but instead Toronto will face the Wizards.

For me, I want to see the best teams period. If the top 8 teams are in and a division winner from a pathetic conference doesn't, I have no problem with that. I want the best team not a team from a conference that doesn't have a shot in the playoffs.

I agree!

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Why top four positions only then?? They should use all eight positioning in the same manner.

this is my beef with the system. it's dumb. why only account for the top 4 records? in the east the cavs are now seeded fifth, despite having the third best record b/c the two teams with better records in front of them are in their same division. stupid to change this rule for only one team in each conference. and that's what they've done for all intents and purposes.

 

[Lorenzo]

this is my beef with the system. it's dumb. why only account for the top 4 records? in the east the cavs are now seeded fifth, despite having the third best record b/c the two teams with better records in front of them are in their same division. stupid to change this rule for only one team in each conference. and that's what they've done for all intents and purposes.

yeah they need to fix that. Either way last year S.A./dallas was the best playoff series in the WC and it was in the 2nd round. Hopefully the NBA will continue to make sure the teams that work hard in the regular season are properly rewarded come playoff time. Unfortunately for phoenix, they get the honor of playing the spurs in the second round. Dallas has had the 2nd round doom matchup a few times in the last several years despite having great regular season performances. Either way unless there is some type of weird upset.....a houston/utah matchup won't be easy by no means.

 

[Lorenzo]

Well, he drove the change and now he is going to benefit from it right away. If not for the rule change for the top four positions, Dallas would have to play San Antonio in the 2nd round. Now, it will be us, no thanks to Cuban!

My mini rant over...

why does it always come back to cuban.

 

[Scot1]

I just read only the last part of this thread, but haven't seen the next logical question--why seed by conferences, either? In years past, there might be 11 West teams ahead of all but 3 or 4 East teams. Why not make the regular season count a little more, by taking only the top 16, or top 12 and give a bye to the top 4?

 

[jbeecham]

I like the idea of a top 16 playoff structure without conference breakdowns. Then you could actually see the 2 best NBA teams in the finals (like Phx VS Dal or SA). The only problem I can see the NBA having with this is that you don't have an equal distribution of games because right now the west teams play the east teams only 2x while they play the rest of the west teams 3-4 times a year. So they'd have to make the game distributions a little more even like playing almost every team 3x and some teams only 2x.

 

[az1965]

So they'd have to make the game distributions a little more even like playing almost every team 3x and some teams only 2x.

That can rotate based on some automatic assignment SW every year...

 

[devilalum]

This is a stupid rule. If they didn't want to reward teams for winning their division then why did they create divisions? Why not just have 2 conferences and no divisions at all?