The crazy world of basketball standings

[Saintsfan]

Boston the number 3 ranked team in the East at the moment have a worse record than Chicago, the 8th ranked team

Seems like a very bizarre system to me.

[Suigi]

It's the same idea as the NHL standings.

The Division leaders are ranked 1-2-3 automatically, so if Boston is in a really weak division (which they are) and Chicago's in a strong one, the results are gonna be like that.

[Saintsfan]

It's the same idea as the NHL standings.

The Division leaders are ranked 1-2-3 automatically, so if Boston is in a really weak division (which they are) and Chicago's in a strong one, the results are gonna be like that.

I unbderstand the system. just seems like Boston (a team I like BTW) doesn't really deserve that ranking.

[CC97]

I ain't complaining... the Raps are 2 games back of 3rd in the East, and 3 games back of 8th.

[NJTank]

Its beuicase the 3 division winners get the top 3 spots no matter what, and in the East this year thats gonan be unfair becuase the Atlantic Division is beyond bad.

[dfwabel]

Now the NBA has really confused me. Before the 2004 realignment, division winners got more home games in the first round, but in round 2, better records did prevail. Today, that does not exists. How can you explain that to the fans? In baseball, the if a wildcard team has a better record, they still have 3 games to teh division winner's 4 (if necessary). Now, why really "seed" them if it does not matter or that even caused a home court advantage?

http://www.nba.com/preview2004/realign_031117.html

[VandyDelphia Mike]

Boston the number 3 ranked team in the East at the moment have a worse record than Chicago, the 8th ranked team

Seems like a very bizarre system to me.

It's a little bit of a misnomer to term the playoff positions in the NBA (or the NHL for that matter) as "rankings." Better to term them as "seedings."

No one is seriously going to tell you that the Boston Celtics are the third best team in all of the Eastern Conference. If you really wanted to know that, you could probably say it's someone bewteen Indiana and Detroit, whichever team you don't want to call second behind the Heat. Okay, Cleveland might have a bit of an argument as well.

But division champions in this format are rewarded. With 3 divisiions, that just increases the likelihood that 1 of the three division leaders is going to be less than stellar.

[MC Buffalo]

You have to use this type of system to reward the division winners otherwise there is no sense in having divisions. You would just have the two Conferences with 15 teams each (not sure how many teams total to be honest, not a huge NBA fan) and you would have to have every team in each conference play a balanced schedule which would kill regular season rivalries.

[KennyRock]

You're correct, even if it was a guess, the NBA does have 15 teams in each conference. The league alignment has been a problem since the league expanded beyond 24 teams. Back then, you can have two conferences, each with two divisions of six teams each. Ever since then, it's been unbalanced, with the West usually having one more team than the East, and the divisional alignment screwed up. It's the only way to do it with thirty teams, and if ya do it that way, you need to have divisional leaders seed 1-3.

Now, say the Celtics do wind up getting third seed in the playoffs, right now they'd face Orlando, who'd likely end the Celtics season, home court or not. Every division is gonna have off years, so you need a way of assuring at least one team from a division makes it to theplayoffs, or you might have whole regions of people not caring about the postseason.