By Ditto Palang
As teams finish jockeying for the 7th and 8th seed, us NBA fans were treated to a spectacular start of the first play-in. Lebron’s blurry eyed dagger on Steph and Jason Tatum turning into prime Kobe Bryant with a 50 point game will be all-time games people will remember that season for. Nevertheless, the play-in tournament is not perfect and requires much more tweaking to reward seeding.
Change 1: Have a minimum number of wins to qualify for a play-in
Suppose a 48 win team finishes 8th in the standing like the Clippers in 2018. Had a play-in occurred then, the Clippers might have had to still face a 39 win Sacramento Kings team even if they’re 9 games behind. Not having a minimum number of wins to qualify for a play-in spot means that the 7th and 8th seeded teams are heavily penalized for exerting effort to be a 7th and 8th seeded team since they could lose that in one or two games. A 4 game win qualifier for the 9th, such as the one they implemented in the 2020 NBA bubble, would be acceptable as it is enough to adjust for a team going hot on a home stretch or a tough week on the road. As for the 10th seed, a 5 game win qualifier from the 8th seed should be implemented as no one wants to see a simple steamrolling of a tanking franchise.
Change 2: Make the 7th and 8th seed duke it out regardless of the 9th/10th play-in tourney happening
We all loved the Lakers-Warriors game and the Celtics-Wizards game. Why not continue this every year? It adds further flare to end the regular season as well as makes the 1st, 2nd and 3rd seed an interesting race of positioning. We saw the Clippers tank to avoid the Lakers and the Nuggets tanking to avoid facing the Lakers as well. This positioning and the extra game to avoid a tougher matchup makes for a strategic and narrative driven look at matchups and the road to the NBA Finals. In some cases, the 8th seed may even be the one easiest path towards the finals. I imagine the 2014 Hawks would’ve been more preferable to matchup against than the 2014 Cavs or 2014 Bulls if for some reason a team like this year’s Warriors or Grizzlies faced one.
The NBA Board of Governors need to push for these changes as this incentivizes going all out throughout the season without reducing the value of being 7th and 8th seeds too much.