Not so sweet sixteen

As I mentioned in my NBA playoffs predictions blog, the playoffs begin this Sunday. If the finals go seven games, the final game will be on June 21. That's two months -- simply ridiculous. There's absolutely no way to justify a two month postseason at the end of a sixth month regular season (and a one month preseason). Baseball doesn't even last that long, Mario.

I also said that the first round should be taken back down to five game series, but I feel a little more radical today. Why even have a first round? When was the last time that we needed 16 teams in the NBA playoffs? This isn't college basketball, there are no cinderellas. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Golden State isn't going to make the finals this year.

So why not just have an eight team playoff? This makes the regular season more interesting and more important and shortens the playoffs by two weeks. While we're at it, let's go back to the four division format as well. This way the division winners get home court advantage and the next four teams with the best records get playoff spots.

In 23 years of the 16 team playoffs, only twice has a team seeded lower than fourth made the NBA finals. In 1994-95, the sixth-seeded Houston Rockets won their second title in a row. They were essentially the same team as the year before, except they added Hall of Famer Clyde Drexler. The only problem was Drexler missed more than half the season due to injury, a common problem with that season's Rockets. The only player on that team to appear in all 82 games was backup point guard Sam Cassell.

The second time this rarity happened was in 1998-99 when the eighth-seeded New York Knicks went to the finals before being beaten by these tough guys. Do you want to know why you remember the 1998-99 season? It's because it was the lockout-shortened season. That means that in the 22 years of non-lockout-shortened play, only once has a lower-seeded team made the finals. And that team didn't make the finals out of luck and they weren't a cinderella. They merely had too many injuries during the regular season.

Once in 22 seasons isn't enough to justify keeping the 16 team playoff system. The only advantage it affords is more money for owners, while sticking the fans with two weeks of mostly uninteresting basketball.