What would happen if the NBA playoffs functioned like March Madness?
By Tyler Key
How are the regions and seeding decided and what will our NBA bracket look like?
First question; who are the top seeds and what are the regions that they will be in? Well, when the NCAA committee decides seeding in college basketball, they take their top-:ranked teams and assign them to the regions that would make most sense for that team, allow home and regional fans to not have to travel far to see them, and assign them in descending order. This left us with the top two seeds in each conference, assigned based on the best records in the NBA:
East - #1 Boston Celtics and #2 Cleveland Cavaliers
Midwest - #1 Minnesota Timberwolves and #2 Milwaukee Bucks
South - #1 Oklahoma City Thunder and #2 Phoenix Suns
West - #1 Denver Nuggets and #2 Los Angeles Clippers
The remaining seeds for each region (3–8) are then assigned not based on location preference but solely based on overall ranking in the field. Now for the second big question: how do we have a 32-team bracket, when there are only 30 teams in the NBA? Well, welcome to the field, the Delaware Blue Coats (the G-League affiliate of the Philadelphia 76ers) and the Sioux Falls Skyforce (the G-League affiliate of the Miami Heat). These have been the top two teams in the G-League this year and will make up the bottom two seeds in the tournament.
Now let’s get to the experimental NBA March Madness tournament itself!