NBA Needs Division Playoffs

The NBA needs to adopt the NFL playoff format. There I said it. Some of you might like the first round of the playoffs and having more teams, but I don't see the point in it. Did we really need to see the Miami Heat play the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round last year? We all knew how that was going to end (unless you're delusional). There's just too much disparity in the NBA for a lot of the first round playoff series to be competitive. In the last three years there have just been seven lower seeds to beat a higher seed in the playoffs and four of those are a five seed beating a four seed. Granted, there have been two eight seeds beating a one seed, but one of those was also the Chicago Bulls without Derrick Rose so that one is pretty understandable.

Just to compare, in the last three years in the NHL there have been eleven lower seeded teams to beat a higher seeded team in the first round of the playoffs, and of twenty-four first round playoff series sixteen have gone to six or seven games (10 of which went to seven). In the same three years, the NBA has had fourteen series go to six or seven games, however, only three of those went to seven games.

I think that those statistics show just how much more competitive the NHL is than the NBA and shows that a sixteen team playoff works much better for the NHL. Now I present to you, what the NBA playoffs could have looked like last year. Trust me, it looks a lot better.

Eastern Conference
Division Winners:
New York, Indiana, Miami
Wild Card(s):
Brooklyn, Chicago


Western Conference
Division Winners:
Oklahoma City, LA Clippers, San Antonio
Wild Card(s)
Denver, Memphis

The second wildcard team may or may not be there. It would depend on if the NBA wants to do what the MLB now does and have a wildcard playoff to determine who the fourth team is, or if they just want to give it to the next best team.

Regardless of if you use the second wild card team or not, doesn't this look like a much more competitive and a much better NBA playoffs than what we normally have? Only the best teams would be there, and it would be pretty hard to pick an obvious choice to lose a series. Unlike when Miami gets to play an eighth seed first round.