Sound Off: NBA Conference Disparity, Should It Be Fixed?

[RaychelSnr]

As of this writing, six of the eight playoff qualifying teams in the NBA's Eastern Conference would not even qualify for the playoffs in the Western Conference. The Phoenix Suns, the ninth ranked team in the Western Conference, would qualify in the East with ten wins to spare.

There have been numerous opinions thrown out on how to fix this seemingly annual occurrence, with everything from full blown realignment to nixing divisions to just taking the top 16 teams from the entire league into the playoffs.

Is it even a problem there is so much disparity between the conferences? Is this a self correcting problem with time?

Sound off with your ideas about how the NBA can increase competitiveness and the fun of the regular and post-season -- or that it should just stay as-is!

[Majingir]

This question is ALWAYS brought up in every single sports league anytime something like this happens..

The location of the teams isn't why some are good and others are bad, it's the management on the teams themselves. You have some markets that just care about making money, and others that care about winning(and need to win as well). It just seems like more of the markets that want to win are in the west.

[ProfessaPackMan]

The current format is fine and there's no need to scrap divisions either.

Not a fan of having the best 16 teams in the league make the playoffs instead of the top 8 in each conference. You pretty much control your own destiny for 7 straight months. Not much more you can ask for in this particular case.

[da ThRONe]

There's like a 95%+ chance none of the teams seeded 5th or lower in either conference make the conference finals. So in the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter.

When more than half the league makes the playoffs it's hard to feel sorry for a team that doesn't make it.

[Gramps91]

I've always kind of been against the conferences because you will never see a some certain matchups in the finals. For example there will never be a championship series between the Spurs and the Mavericks because they are both Western teams. It's also makes for problems such as the current playoff layout being made up of a bunch ot mediocre to crappy teams in the east and some really good teams that didn't make it in the West, like the Suns.

[VDusen04]

Without delving too deeply down this path, might the Eastern Conference talent disparity be a little more evenly spread had three of its biggest stars not joined one single club? I mean, having Brandon Jennings & Josh Smith team up with Rodney Stuckey just isn't fair.

[Sheen_O_Mack]

They should lower the amount of teams that make the playoffs from 8 from each conference to 6. When half the league makes the playoffs it makes making the playoffs less of an accomplishment. Look at baseball, or to a slightly lesser extent football, making the playoffs is a big deal, but there arises another problem with basketball, parity. We already know the 3-4 teams that have a shot to win it all. IMO the sport would be more entertaining if every team that made the playoffs had a shot to win it all.

[rudeworld]

Leave it the way it is.... some seasons the west is the weaker season. My team the Knicks sucked all season and still had a chance to make it..... the way it is now it kind of gives more teams a reason to be playing hard for all 82 games, if it was the top 16 some of these teams in the EAST would of rolled out the bench and looked to next season and the fans would have no reasons to tune in and watch..... leave it how it is..