Sports Nerdery Alert
So the NBA has this horrible scheme where the divison winners are seeded 1-3 in the conference tournament. This year proves this out to be horrible shite, as the two best teams in the western conference — the Spurs and the Mavs — are in the same conference. One of them will be the 1 seed while the other will be relegated to the 4.
Now, this isn’t so bad in the first round for the 4 seed, as they’ll still have home court on account of their better record. However, we will (most likley) see what should be the conference finals in the semis second, and what of the “battle” for the 5th seed? Mark Cuban walks through the regretable scenario on his blog.
What happens if both the Grizz and Clips clinch homecourt advantage over the Nuggets ?. Put another way, its possible that, and Im just picking numbers here, the Grizz and Clips are tied with 4 games to play, and both teams know that the team that loses more of those 4 games gets home court advantage against the Nuggets. The team that wins more, gets the Mavs or Spurs starting on the road.
Honestly, I can’t see why both teams wouldn’t throw games in order to get home court in the first round. The Clippers haven’t been in the playoffs since the Eisenhower administration, so they’ll take all the home playoff games they can get. The Grizz have been a little better of late, but they’re basically in the same boat.
I really hope the NBA gets it together next year and does away with this whole division-champs-must-be-1-through-3 thing.