NBA commissioner Adam Silver has confirmed that the NBA is still looking into the possibility of reseeding teams 1-16 in the playoffs, regardless of conference affiliation according to ESPN’s Nick Friedell.
Silver already implemented the new All-Star format earlier this week. Team captains will be given the task to select players from a pool of 12 best players of both the Eastern and Western Conference, regardless of conference loyalties. Silver says the league is discussing this new playoff idea.
“Reformatting the playoffs is something we’ll continue to look at. I think though it would require revisiting the regular-season schedule as well. As I’ve said before, we don’t play a balanced schedule now, as I’m sure you know. And for those that don’t, that means that teams in the East play each other more than they play teams in the West. And our feeling is, if we were going to seed 1-16, we would need to play a balanced schedule to make it fair for everyone if we were going to seed 1-16 in the playoffs. It may be that as we continue to experiment with the number of days over which we can schedule 82 games that it will create more of an opportunity for a balanced schedule.”
Silver also had something to say in regards to the season starting a week earlier than usual and that an 82-game isn’t forever.
“Let me add to that I said the other day [to USA Today] that there’s no magic in an 82-game season. It’s not a change you’re going to see in the short term, but I think when we step back and look holistically at our schedule and how playoffs are seeded we should look at the entire format. Counter-balancing seeding playoff teams 1-16 is also the desire to create more rest for our players and when possible reduce the amount of travel. In adding the extra week to the regular season this year, we will be able to eliminate completely four games in five nights. I think it’s the first time in the history of the league we were able to do that. Plus we have back to backs at an all-time low. If we took the existing format, the existing schedule and then we seeded playoffs 1-16, we’d be adding additional travel; you would have teams criss-crossing the country in the first round.”
With Adam Silver at the helm, NBA fans around the world can expect changes within the league.