For a minute there, I thought I was the only one who thought the NBA playoffs should be a one game elimination instead of a dragged out seven game series.
From DenverPost.Com, Denver Nugget George Karl shared a few ideas on where he would like to see the NBA head in the future:
Do you think you should wipe out divisions and just have conference standings?
“I’m even crazier than that,” the Nuggets’ coach said. “I think you should put all top-16 and do it that way, and then reseed for the next round,” he said.
So basically, here’s Karl’s idea: The top eight teams from the Western Conference and the top eight teams from the Eastern Conference are put into a playoff pool. At this point, conference affiliation no longer matters. Instead, it’s all about record.
The team with the best record plays the team with the 16th-best record and so on.
And then, like he said, they reseed hockey-style for the next round. And so, the NBA’s “Final Four” could be four teams from the same conference — but, as proven by this system, perhaps the four best teams in basketball.
“I think it would get fans excited, man. It would be crazy,” Karl said. “And we travel with private jets now, so I think you can schedule it to where you’d get two days of rest between games. I think it would be really fun and interesting to see the matchups.”
The coach had one other idea on Saturday. Cut the 82-game season to a 62-game season, and then in the middle of the season, “You can take a three-week break and have an NCAA-like tournament. Single elimination is a lot different than a seven-game series.”
What NBA fan wouldn’t enjoy seeing this happen? Every true NBA fan knows that players don’t start taking games serious until AFTER the NBA All-Star Weekend. With Karl’s idea, you get to see the strength of teams and who truly comes to play game after game. It shouldn’t take 4 games to beat one team. Plus, it would be exciting to see the NBA take a page or two from the NCAA, where you get to see real heart and basketball being played.