"Adam Silver: NBA needs to look at taking top 16 teams for the playoffs"

[Jamaal510]

More: http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/02/05/adam-silver-nba-needs-to-look-at-taking-top-16-teams-for-the-playoffs/

Adam Silver was at the Stephen Curry show in Oakland last night, and he had killer seats. It’s one of the perks of being commissioner.

He also went on the air on Comcast Sportsnet Bay Area and took some questions from fans posted for him on Facebook, with topics ranging from his basketball experience to expanding the NBA to Europe.

However, the most interesting answer was his to the question of if the NBA should change its playoff system and, rather than take the top eight in each conference, take the Top 16 teams and seed them regardless of conference. Here was his response (that part of the interview starts at the 5:05 mark on the video above).

“Ultimately we want to see your best teams in the playoffs. And there is an unbalance and a certain unfairness. There is a proposal (from one of the broadcasters)… where the division winners would all automatically go into the playoffs and then you’d seed the next 10 best teams. I think that’s the kind of proposal we need to look at. There are travel issues of course, but in this day in age every team of course has their own plane, travels charter. I don’t think the discussion should end there. And as I’ve said, my first year I was studying a lot of these issues and year 2 is time to take action. It’s something I’m going to look at closely with the competition committee. I do think it’s an area where we need to make a change.”

[JonLP24]

1. This would benefit the Central Time Zone teams in the long run

His comment about them having their own plane loses me, I never pictured them flying coach but it is well known for teams to get hammered on west coast trips or east coast trips, it is especially tough for the coast teams.

Before Cleveland racked up 12-straight, they were hammered out west. My Suns are actually the last team to defeat them, they were able to regroup winning back-to-back at the Staples Center before this comfortable home-stand. A few seasons ago the Suns started out the season I think 12-19, finished. 42-40. The difference? Home games.

It is very impressive Atlanta & Golden State lead the league with the records but I notice both teams have played more home games so far. I took a look to see Golden State had a brutal east coast trip. Yes, in fact it starts today.

Fly out @ Atlanta
Fly out to NY Knicks in back-to-back nights.
Turn out and head to Philadelphia Monday.
Take a day off play in Minnesota
before coming home Fri Feb 20 to host the Spurs.
Then turn back around and head to Indiana 22nd
@Washington 24th
@Cleveland 26th
@Toronto 27th
@Boston March 1st
@Brooklyn 2nd

Then they begin a comfortable stretch with the only road games Denver, Phoenix, Portland until they have to fly out to Memphis the 27th.

Atlanta begins a brutal trip out west March 11: Denver, Phoenix, LAL, Sacramento, Golden State, Oklahoma City before coming home.

A central time zone team is better able to handle the swings of the NBA season, I agree there is an unbalance (not as bad though.. Charlotte & Miami aren't bad at all) but if you have teams playing 4 games each against divisional opponents, 30 games out-of-conference you'd have to have a schedule that is very balanced but no matter how you slice it, the teams in the middle of the country can handle those Boston, Miami, LA-Golden State-Portland trips better than the coastal teams.

Its kinda interesting, my Suns spent most of post-Amare years just outside looking in but now that they're 8th & Kevin Durant is 9th somebody talks about changing it. Its been imbalanced for as long as I remember, before the West started sending 8 50 win teams to the playoffs, the East was better top to bottom before Jordan retired(2nd time).

But I'm well aware of of the difficulties the Suns face when traveling further East outside the MST, especially killer road trips. Oklahoma City has a very bad road record, no reason for it. (On edit: I just realized they're in the Northwest Division. Forgot they didn't move them out when they did, their road record actually does make a bit of sense)

I remember Phil Jackson as a coach with the Lakers say over-and-over they will not go 72-10. He also said same thing for the Heat shortly after signing James & Bosh, pointing to Chicago's location in the CST why they can't do it.