NBA realignment should lead to new playoff format

The baseball playoffs have been so tense that I don't dare touch my TV set, lest I be electrocuted. The Yankees-Red Sox and Cubs-Marlins series fulminate with so much drama and subplots that not even an episode of "Playmakers" -- snicker, snicker -- can compare. \nThey've consumed this viewer so much, in fact, that I've had little time to care for many other sports. So it was with little fanfare that the National Basketball Association announced this small bit of news yesterday: The league will realign into six divisions of five teams each beginning in the 2004-05 season when the Charlotte Bobcats enter the league and become its 30th team.\nThe league unfortunately announced that its playoff format will change little. Eight teams from each conference will still make the playoffs with the three division winners and five best records of non-division winners making it from each conference.\nWhat's unfortunate is that the league is missing out on a chance to make its playoff system more like baseball's. In other words, only four teams should make it from each conference with only one wildcard team.\nThe regular season has to mean more in the NBA. Games too often have the intensity and excitement of dinner at an old folks home (before they run out of peas, of course). There's nothing more depressing than trudging through the snow for a Clippers-Pistons game in mid-December, and while only so much can happen to eliminate the winter blahs, cutting the number of playoff teams would serve as a good start.\nThe benefits would be counted in multiple. \nFirst, organizations would try even harder to win. It's one thing to fall just short of a title, but try soothing the organization's and fans' anxiety if one's favorite team doesn't make the playoffs.\nSecond, it might alter free agent movement. When teams would make their pitch to players, they could really emphasize winning and use it as more of a drawing card since success wouldn't be so widespread.\nThird, it will help strengthen the national team. For example, if only the top four in each conference made the playoffs, then the Orlando Magic wouldn't have made the playoffs last year. That would mean Tracy McGrady would have had more time to prepare himself for competition in the Tournament of the Americas. If that were to happen this coming season, then players on teams falling into the fifth-to-eighth-place range would have the chance to rest up for the Olympics.\nConsidering that fans have taken on the role of being armchair complainers in international play -- in a few short years many have gone from complaining that we're bullying smaller countries like Angola to complaining about why the United States finished in sixth place at last year's world championships -- USA Basketball needs to do something about it, and making sure players are fresher would be a start.\nFourth, it would serve to open up the draft lottery. Under a baseball-like system, the Los Angeles Lakers would not have made the playoffs last year. Now considering the number of Laker-haters out there, more of you would have lost money than tears. But what would you have thought if the Lakers won LeBron James in the draft lottery?\nWell, it would have made an interesting situation even more interesting. What's important is that it would increase the number of possible destinations a player like James could wind up. \nThe greater truth though is that the NBA Draft is a fairly huge crapshoot after the first three to five players. After all, if the NBA Draft was such a sure thing, wouldn't the Hawks or Grizzlies or Wizards or Clippers be good by now?\nFifth, the profit factor of the playoffs might be balanced out some. Obviously, we know why 16 teams make the playoffs to begin with -- more teams have a chance to win, and more teams can sell playoff tickets complete with their inflated price tag. But in places like Denver or Miami, they can't worry so much about making the playoffs. They need to spice up their regular season first. So while they wouldn't have had a chance to sell playoff tickets in New Orleans last year since the fifth-place Hornets wouldn't have made the playoffs, maybe they would have increased the number of regular season tickets sold with every game being a nailbiter.\nFor NBA fans who don't know what a nailbiter is, you're encouraged to watch the baseball playoffs.