It all seems so simple.
The best 16 teams get into the playoffs.
But, of course, it isn’t. There are conferences involved. There is travel involved. And, well, there is tradition involved: The winner of the Eastern Conference faces the winner of the Western Conference for all the marbles. That’s how it goes.
None of the four major professional sports consolidates its entire league and just takes its top (insert number here) teams for playoff qualification. Not one.
So, yes, NBA commissioner Adam Silver is stepping out on a serious limb in considering the change. But all things considered — and we’re really just talking about an Eastern Conference that looks like it will never have anything more than say six relevant teams in any one season — it’s a step the league might have to take.
But while the focus is on the playoffs themselves and the fairness to teams that deserve to be in the postseason, the effect of the new structure would have a wider reaching effect.
It would be a job saver. It would be a franchise-intention clarifier.
And it would actually help the teams that need it. Which, in the end, might be the best way to revive the mid- to bottom-tier teams in the East.
Let’s start there. There are six teams in the East, all with losing records, all within four games of one another from the seventh spot to the 12th. Any of those teams, including 19-30 Boston (into Saturday’s games), could still make the playoffs. But they shouldn’t. They need to get into the lottery.
Part of the issue with the East’s mediocre teams is they’re only occasionally in position to get even a lower-tier lottery pick to help raise the talent level. So they go with what they’ve got. Try to make a move or two in free agency. And then barely tread water the next season.
Bad teams need good players. Good players can be found, and are most accessible, in the draft. A bad team in the playoffs has no access to them. So they stay mediocre, struggling to get out of that limbo. Sometimes they can escape (see: Atlanta), but more often, they can’t (see: Charlotte, Orlando, Philadelphia, Boston).
On the flip side, teams like New Orleans and Phoenix don’t belong in the lottery. They’re playoff-ready, relatively young that need the seasoning the playoffs provide in order to continue taking steps to contender status.
In those situations, coaches and general managers are unfairly on hot seats, sweating out what in all actuality are good seasons.
But if the best 16 records were getting in, the Pelicans would be comfortably in, and their coach, Monty Williams, would be concerned only with seeding instead of staying.
I was never big on the idea of altering the playoff structure. I’ve never been as down on the Eastern Conference and its teams and its brand of basketball as nearly everyone else seems to be. But I’m warming up to this. Maybe NBA owners will too.
Christopher Dempsey: cdempsey@denverpost.com or
