NBA owners discussing schedule, playoff changes
NEW YORK – NBA owners planned to discuss several competition-related issues at their annual end-of-the-season meetings, which conclude today in New York.
Improving the schedule, conference alignment, playoff format changes and draft lottery format improvements are among the topics owners planned to address.
Improvement to the schedule – 82 games in 170 days right now – is at the top of NBA commissioner Adam Silver's agenda, and he made that clear at his All-Star press conference in February when he said, "There's nothing more important than the health and welfare of our players. And ultimately we want to see players getting appropriate rest and playing at the highest level. That's something we're very focused on."
Silver pledged to reduce the number of four games in five nights that teams play and reduce the number of back-to-backs teams play.
"It's a math formula at the end of the day in terms of the number of days in the season and the number of games we play, but we think we can make a dramatic reduction there," Silver said in February.
A change to the playoff format remains a hot-button topic, especially now with two teams (Oklahoma City and Phoenix) in the Western Conference that finished with a better record than the eighth-seed in the Eastern Conference (Brooklyn) but the two teams in the West didn't make the playoffs.
There is a push, certainly from external critics and possibly some owners, to include the 16-best teams regardless of conference in the playoffs.
Early this week, Silver told Bleacher Report owners will be presented a "range of options" for playoff changes, but it's still early in the process and no change is imminent.
As the NBA focuses on scheduling enhancements and with the potential of a new collective bargaining agreement looming after the 2016-17 season, the league likely will wait until those issues are resolved before making dramatic changes to the playoff format. Silver is also concerned about a balanced schedule when it comes to significant changes to the playoff format. It doesn't make sense to include the 16 best teams when the West and East play 52 in-conference games and 30 out-of-conference games.
It's a complicated issue and Silver has said often that if there were an easy fix, the league would have already made changes to the playoff format.
Possibly more pressing than a change to the playoff format is draft lottery reform. Owners addressed the issue at their fall meetings but were unable to pass a new lottery format. The league wants reform but is searching for a better solution.
In February, Silver said a majority of owners supported draft lottery reform but did have the 3/4 vote to introduce a new lottery system.
"I personally believe we do need to make some changes in the draft lottery, which I believe is largely a perception issue," Silver said. "We want to ensure that our fans know that our teams do not have an incentive to lose games. That it may not be in any given season that you can ultimately have a winning and playoff‑bound team, and it's a multi‑year task, but we want to ensure our fans that our teams are always undergoing a process to try to field the best possible team on the floor."
Updates were also planned on:
• The sale of the Atlanta Hawks.
• Progress on new arenas for the Milwaukee Bucks, Sacramento Kings and Golden State Warriors.
• Revenue sharing.
• State of team and league business operations.