NBA playoff formatting options in a shortened season

Freeze standings, do shortened series

“Freezing” the standings basically means that the playoffs begin with what the standings were from the day the season was suspended. The bracket remains intact, with the number of games shortened a bit.

This is most beneficial to teams already in the bracket. Whatever money is left to be made from this season, the contenders will receive the bulk of.

It’s also not difficult to implement. The majority of the playoff picture is set, with really only the seeding to be settled. The East’s top eight are pretty much locked, while the top seven in the West are entrenched. Four teams are within four games of catching the West’s 8 seed, the Memphis Grizzlies, so they’d definitely argue against this, but someone has to lose out in these options.

For lottery squads, the last third of the season has been putrid for several seasons now anyway. Player development is barely a thing by that point, as many important players see more rest down the stretch. Other than those jockeying for a back-end playoff berth, not too many teams lose out with this option.

Contenders will still need tune-up games before the ball gets rolling, which can be done in a two-week period. That leaves a maximum of 55 days for a postseason, 10 less than the NBA scheduled for last year’s playoffs.

To account for rest, the most the NBA can do is two rounds of best-of-five, and then two rounds of best-of-seven. This would intensify the earlier rounds in ways they often aren’t, and the revenue lost from those potential two extra games would likely be made up in increased demand.

If done at a neutral site, the first two rounds can be a “2-2-1” format, with the higher seed hosting Games 1, 2 and 5. The Conference Finals and NBA Finals can still be “2-2-1-1-1” as they were last season.

If travel is involved, they will have to condense which games are held where. The first two rounds would likely resort to “2-3,” meaning that the lower seed hosts Games 1 and 2 while the higher seed hosts Games 3-5. The final two rounds would then be “2-3-2” like MLB’s best-of-seven series.