Lessons of the Bubble – Mini Relegation??

In most NBA seasons, the end of the regular season can be a slog, especially waiting for the playoffs.  Of course, in 2020 – with the Covid pandemic – the league decided to go to a “bubble-like” structure in Orlando to run the rest of the season.  This started with 8 seeding games among 22 teams with plausible chances to make the playoffs.  It was a weird format, but it was hard to tell exactly how it would go, especially after a 3 month break.

But you know what?  It has been a lot of fun.  The games have been competitive, especially with teams all having playoff games to play for, including teams like Portland who got healthy over the 3 month hiatus.  So Keith Smith, who writes for Yahoo and Celtics blog, wondered about ways that the seeding game idea could be extended to the regular season.  Most of the ideas are good – though I think it needs some perfecting.  First a couple of notions:

• The owners are loath to give up home dates.  So, a large change in total games is a non-starter
• There can’t be true relegation.  The impact to franchise values would be massive, and the owners won’t agree to that
• There has to be conference integrity.  Too much tradition.

So, we need a season that is around 82 games.  But now, let’s focus on the relegation thing.  Yes, we’re not going to kick teams out of the league – but wait a minute?  Smith’s own plan talks about a cutdown – that IS a relegation of a sort.  So let’s keep pulling this thread.  Going back to Smith’s piece:

The regular season would start at the beginning of the third week of October. It would last for 62 games and end in mid-February at the All-Star break. That’s 3.6 games per week over 17 weeks, which is roughly the same pace as a normal season. The breakdown of the 62 regular-season games:

• Three games vs. each team in the same division = 12 games
• Two games vs. each team in the same conference = 20 games
• Two games vs. each team in the opposite conference = 30 games

This is all good stuff.  However, let’s go with a full-round robin … 58 games.

Smith posits a 3 week break for the All-Stars, which I think is too long.  You still want the season to have momentum – but a two week RnR break makes sense, including the ASG and Trade Deadline, as well as rejiggering the schedule.

Now, after the All-Star Break, we can split the league into 3 divisions

• East Top 10
• West Top 10
• The bottom 10 (combined East and West)

So, why does the Bottom 10 play at all?  Smith writes that lottery position could be the goal – but I think there is a more interesting idea:

• All three divisions play another full round robin of 18 games.  They keep their records from the 58 game round robin.
• Each conferences Top 6 make the playoffs.  7-8-9 make the playoff tournament.  #10 – foreshadowing.
• The Bottom 10 starts at 0-0.  The top 2 teams in the Bottom 10 advance to face the 10th seed in each conference.  (pre-second season record breaks ties) The best record of the #10 seeds hosts the #2 Bottom 10 team etc etc

This gives more meaning to more of the 1080 regular season games than there is now.  Indeed, you could sell and brand the second chance season.  The attraction for playoffs is well known.

But how can this help with anti-tanking?  The lottery impact:

• The 8 play-in teams (seeds 6-10 from the East and West) get 20 combinations of the 1000 lottery combinations.  (16% total)
• The remainder of the combinations get distributed to the bottom 10 teams like so:
  • First place: 200 combinations
  • Second place: 150 combinations
  • Third place: 100 combinations
  • Fourth Place: 80 combinaions
  • Fifth Place: 60 combinations
  • Sixth thru 10th: 50 combinations each

This will obviously not happen – orgs are risk averse after all.  But a man can dream.