NBA needs to bounce playoff format

Zac Hereth, Sports Editor

The NBA is in the midst of two competitive series as the finals approach, and I could really care less.

Just like last year, the year before and the year before that, I just can’t get that excited to watch a league I have nothing invested in. It’s been eight-long years since the SuperSonics left Seattle, and every year I feel myself growing evermore distant from the NBA.

I tried to look at a silver-lining when the Sonics left, which was that I could start rooting for individuals and not pick a favorite team, essentially giving me what I deemed acceptable bandwagon-fan status for the NBA, but it didn’t work.

My disinterest in the NBA playoffs doesn’t just stem from sour grapes though—the playoff system in the NBA is flawed, and it’s just not fun to watch.

The playoffs are too long. I’m not the first person to say it, and I won’t be the last. But the potential for a team to play 28-extra games, or just over one-third of another regular season, is just crazy.

But I get it, it’s a money thing. If the NBA went back to a five-game first round, those subpar teams that get in by the skin of their teeth are only guaranteed one home game. The seven-game series guarantees them two, which essentially doubles the playoff revenue for teams that get swept in the first round by far superior opponents.

No other league in the United States besides the NHL (which nobody cares about) plays this long of a postseason. Even worse, the NBA gives teams one or two days off between playoff games when they don’t have to travel.

What’s worse than the potential 28-extra games? The over-saturation of crappy teams that make the playoffs.

Until this year, winning 38 games and being six-games under .500 would commonly get a team a seven or eight seed in the Eastern Conference.

Should a team with a losing record be in the playoffs? Hell no, but the NBA is fine with letting over half of its teams in playoffs, which really takes away the prestige of being a playoff-caliber team.

Comparatively, the MLB, after recently expanding its playoffs, lets one-third of its teams in the postseason, and the NFL let’s just two-fifths of its team in.

If the MLB let as many teams into the playoffs as the NBA, the Mariners would have made the playoffs in 2002, 2003, 2007, 2009 and 2014; then what franchise would Seattle fans bitch about until football season starts?

Last year’s playoffs lasted just two days under two months long, and guess what the NBA did this year? It potentially expanded the length of the finals.

If the NBA finals goes seven games this year, it will span 18-days long, and that’s way too damn long. (Insert “Too Damn High” meme here).