Monday, February 20, 2012

Scheduling a 32 team NBA

Alright, so I laid out a proposal of a 32-team NBA.  In my previous post I split it up into four 8-team divisions.  There is an alternate system that might work just as well, so to all three of my readers, let me know if you like it or not.

Northwest-
Seattle Supersonics
Portland Trailblazers
Utah Jazz
Denver Nuggets

West-
Sacramento Kings
Golden State Warriors
Los Angeles Clippers
Los Angeles Lakers

Southwest-
Phoenix Suns
San Antonio Spurs
Dallas Mavericks
Houston Rockets

South-
Oklahoma City Thunder
Kansas City expansion
New Orleans Hornets
Memphis Grizzlies
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Southeast-
Miami Heat
Orlando Magic
Atlanta Hawks
Charlotte Bobcats

Northeast-
Boston Celtics
New York Knicks
Philadelphia 76ers
Washington Wizards

East-
Brooklyn Nets
Toronto Raptors
Cleveland Cavaliers
Detroit Pistons

North-
Milwaukee Bucks
Minnesota Timberwolves
Chicago Bulls
Indiana Pacers

Personally, I think the league should avoid expanding the season beyond 82 games.  I would hate to see the NBA become MLB where you have too many (162) games in a season.  If you wanted to add a few you could, but here is my schedule which would keep the season at exactly 82 games:

Each team in the league will play a home and away game with everyone else in the league.  Not including your franchise, there are 31 other teams * 2 games = 62 games

How to get the other 20 games becomes a little bit more interesting...for starters lets add another home and away with the teams in your division.  3 teams in your division * 2 additional games = 6 more games.  We are now up to 68 games of the 82.

Next I would add one more game against each team in your conference (western or eastern) That would be 12 more games leading to an 80 game season.

For the final two games, I would add one more home and away series between the doublets.  If you notice how the league is set up, the majority of teams have a natural rivalry pair associated.  Above I listed the natural rivals as right underneath each other (Ex for NW division, natural rivals=Seattle and Portland; Denver and Utah)

Would love some feedback on this expansion of my previous idea.  Alternatively, if you wanted to retain the four 8-team conferences, I would probably cut the season to 76 games (62 against everyone + 14 for an additional home and away series against the other 7 teams in the division) or expand to 84 games ( same as above but add one more game against the other 8 teams in your conference).

The point was brought up that bringing in two expansion teams might cause considerable talent dilution.  I think this is a very real concern that people have, and think it might be wise to introduce the two expansion franchises over a time period of 5-10 years to help ease this process.  Let me know what you all think!

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