Adam Silver: 'We Need to Make a Change' to NBA Playoff Seeding System

Adam Silver looks at the disparity between the NBA's Eastern and Western Conference and sees exactly what the rest of us do: a need for change.

The NBA commissioner made a cameo on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area Wednesday night while Stephen Curry was bombing atomically, during which time he answered an array of questions that fans posted on Facebook. One such inquiry delved into whether the league should consider changing the playoff format so that the 16 best teams make the postseason, regardless of conference affiliation.

Silver responded thusly, per NBC Sports' Kurt Helin:

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Ultimately we want to see your best teams in the playoffs. And there is an unbalance and a certain unfairness. There is a proposal (from one of the broadcasters)… where the division winners would all automatically go into the playoffs and then you’d seed the next 10 best teams. I think that’s the kind of proposal we need to look at. There are travel issues of course, but in this day in age every team of course has their own plane, travels charter. I don’t think the discussion should end there. And as I’ve said, my first year I was studying a lot of these issues and year 2 is time to take action. It’s something I’m going to look at closely with the competition committee. I do think it’s an area where we need to make a change.

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That nuclear noise you hear is the sound of roughly half the Eastern Conference calling for Silver's job.

If the Association merely awarded playoff spots to the 16 best teams this season, the East's seventh- and eighth-seed teams, the Charlotte Hornets and Miami Heat, would find themselves lottery-bound at the moment. It would be the same story if the league adopted a system in which the six division winners and next 10 best squads were granted postseason bids.

Rolling with any of the above scenarios would indeed create some wonky travel schedules. But as Kelly Dwyer explains for Yahoo Sports, the NBA is equipped to handle the side effects:

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Charlotte and Miami would be stricken from the current lineup in favor of New Orleans and Oklahoma City, with the Thunder and Warriors playing a rather mileage-heavy first round matchup that you’d already probably see in any Western postseason. Cross-conference matchups would include New Orleans taking on Atlanta (they should probably be in the same division anyway), Milwaukee taking on Memphis (they share a time zone), and two dicier ones in the Portland/Chicago and Los Angeles Clippers/Washington Wizards matchups.

With NBA first rounds already slated to spread out seven potential games in 14 days, seriously, these teams could pull it off.

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This is certainly a surmountable obstacle. The only real downside would be the potential impact this has on regional matchups, as Helin notes.

Cross-conference battles could impede intraconference rivals from meeting in the playoffs. Rather than seeing the San Antonio Spurs square off against the division-rival Memphis Grizzlies in the first round this season, we would see Memphis take on the Milwaukee Bucks and the Spurs face the Dallas Mavericks (another division rival). 

Examples would become more extreme once certain teams get better. Instead of seeing the New York Knicks wage battle against the Boston Celtics, you could see New York against the New Orleans Pelicans and Boston against the Portland Trail Blazers—or something like that.

Still, something needs to be done. When you have teams 12 (Boston) and 14 (Indiana Pacers) games under .500 chasing postseason berths, there's a clear demand for change.

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The upside quashes any drawbacks. There's a better-than-good chance both the Oklahoma City Thunder and Pelicans miss the playoffs this season, even though they're each on pace to win at least 42 games. Last season, the Phoenix Suns finished in the lottery despite securing 48 victories.

That shouldn't happen. Not when you have the 38-win Atlanta Hawks and a 43-win Charlotte team being given a ticket to the big dance.

The NBA must explore all proposed solutions at this point. Anything that allows the league's best teams to play on the biggest stage should be fair game because the best teams should play on the biggest stage.

It is, in fact, that simple.