The separation of the Western and Eastern conferences helps tremendously in organization of teams and divisions, setting schedules and other various usages such as All-Star Weekend and awards of the week.
There is one area, however, that it greatly holds back on: playoff seeding.
In recent years, the gap of talent among teams in each conference has been terribly noticeable. It seems that every year that the Western Conference bracket leaves behind more blood than the year before in every round, while fans wait for the second round of the Eastern Conference bracket to begin and bring some excitement.
Last season, the Chicago Bulls clinched the fifth seed in the East with a 45-37 record. The Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets had the same record, yet placed seventh and eighth in the West. Twelve games separated the No. 1 Miami Heat from the No. 2 New York Knicks, while the Oklahoma City Thunder had only a two-game lead over the San Antonio Spurs and the team closest to a 12-game separation was the sixth seed Golden State Warriors at 13 games back.
No offense to the Brandon Jennings-era Milwaukee Bucks, but teams below .500 just shouldn’t be in the playoff race. Photo Credit: Keith Allison, Flickr.com
So, what exactly does the conference separation serve in the playoffs? Wouldn’t the playoffs be much more exciting if the actual 16 best teams played, and in an order by overall record?
Here is how the playoff matchup would have been last season if the ranking was done strictly by overall record across the league:
No. 1 Miami Heat vs. No. 16 *Boston Celtics/Dallas Mavericks
No. 2 Oklahoma City Thunder vs. No. 15 Utah Jazz
No. 3 San Antonio Spurs vs. No. 14 Atlanta Hawks
No. 4 Denver Nuggets vs. No. 13 Houston Rockets
No. 5 Los Angeles Clippers vs. No. 12 Los Angeles Lakers
No. 6 Memphis Grizzlies vs. No. 11 Chicago Bulls
No. 7 New York Knicks vs. No. 10 Golden State Warriors
No. 8 Indiana Pacers vs. No. 9 Brooklyn Nets
* The Celtics only played 81 games last season due to the league canceling its game following the Boston Marathon Bombing. It remains to be seen if they or Dallas would have claimed the 16th spot in this hypothetical scenario.
An all-Los Angeles first round matchup, Stephen Curry making his way back to Madison Square Garden for a playoff series after dropping 54 points earlier in the season, the Nuggets and Rockets making as much of an up-and-down matchup as it could be and the Pacers and Nets giving us a semifinal-level series right off the bat. Much better than trotting the Milwaukee Bucks out there.
Stephen Curry in a playoff series with New York. Who wouldn’t have wanted to watch that? (Flickr.com photo/Keith Allison)
Comparing western teams versus Eastern teams, the West holds a 46-19 advantage so far this season, which equates to a 58-24 season. If there was a redistribution of games between teams of the West and East in a merger, the gap would be bound to increase.
Perhaps if the East was more powerful and had a tighter playoff race from top to bottom like the West, this conversation wouldn’t come up as often. But the fact remains that the conference separation hasn’t helped much in the championship race in recent years.
Again, the conference separation does its job at keeping an order throughout the season, but it ultimately restricts the intensity of the playoffs. Why follow a guideline that lets teams that even win half of their games enter the playoffs, when an order by overall record can attract so many more viewers?