New NBA playoff seeding rules & effect on Raptors – another perspective
By Brian Boake
My colleague Kevin Nimmock has served up an excellent analysis of the NBA’s newly announced playoff rules. This topic is so important I’m going to weigh in as well.
Apr 26, 2015; Washington, DC, USA; (L-R) Washington Wizards forward Paul Pierce, forward Drew Gooden, guard John Wall, and center Marcin Gortat celebrate on the bench in the final seconds of the fourth quarter against the Toronto Raptors in game four of the first round of the NBA Playoffs at Verizon Center. The Wizards won 125-94, and won the series 4-0. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
To recap: the NBA has decided to seed playoff teams strictly according to their regular season record, rather than allocating a top-four spot (and home court) to Division winners.
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For the Toronto Raptors, the luxury of being able to coast by virtue of being Atlantic Division champions has just been unceremoniously removed. In my rankings, the Raptors, who are not an elite team in the East, are going to be in a serious battle for the fourth seed. They will need to earn it through 82 games, not whatever number of wins is needed to secure another now meaningless pennant. Teams like Milwaukee, Miami and Washington are going to be in the top-4 hunt.
The new rule won’t bar shabby Eastern teams from the playoffs, as the Conference rules remain in force. You can count on several Western teams being eliminated despite excellent records, while one or more sub-.500 Eastern teams will qualify.
What must terrify the Eastern pygmies is the possibility of the NBA invoking the nuclear option. If the powers that be decide to scrub Conferences altogether, the East would be chock full of also-rans. I don’t imagine that’s likely to happen, but then I wouldn’t have wagered on the league dropping the Division-champion dividend either.
Here are last season’s results, when Divisions mattered. As it happened, nothing would have been different in the East had the new rules (I use the plural because there are tie-break changes as well) been in place.
NBA 2014-15 Conference Standings (h/t: Land of Basketball)
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| Eastern Conference | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Raptors face a dilemma. Should coach Dwane Casey play his first unit relentlessly to rack up the wins, or accept a few avoidable defeats while giving his kids and new people some floor time? While it’s hard to imagine the Raptors falling out of the playoff race (barring a rash of injuries), enjoying home court advantage is a worthwhile goal.
More than that, the aim is to avoid the top teams for as long as possible. The Raptors are psychologically vulnerable, having flubbed their last two playoff appearances. The team needs to slay the dragon by getting beyond the first round. Playing Cleveland or Chicago isn’t an ideal path to that modest goal.
For basketball fans in general, the new rules are positive…for Raptor fans in particular, not so much.
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