After meeting with the league's Board of Governors on those and other topics Tuesday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said that - as expected - the league is leaning toward eliminating any protection for division winners in playoff seeding going forward and instead placing the eight teams on the Eastern and Western Conference brackets based solely by record.
There was no vote Tuesday, though one is expected soon.
''It's my expectation that that change will be adopted before the beginning of this coming season,'' Silver said.
Part of me still feels that it's a knee-jerk reaction to a season where the race in the West happened to be much closer than usual, and that the current format is hardly disastrous, or leads to bad basketball or anything. However, it does make sense, and it's a change that probably should've been considered as soon as the league expanded from four divisions to six ten years ago. With three division winners per conference, this was bound to happen, and will probably continue to happen if there's no change. All the same, I'll chuckle a bit if all the player movement this offseason results in the division winners taking the top three seeds (or at least all finishing in the top four), somewhat making the change moot. But yeah, it makes sense.
The moratorium issue, that one is stumping everyone.
The league has an annual window starting July 1 where deals can be agreed to, but not finalized while the salary numbers and other financial matters for the coming year are being crunched. And it got tons of attention this year when DeAndre Jordan committed to the Dallas Mavericks, then changed his mind and stayed with the Los Angeles Clippers.
Jordan broke no rules; his commitment was nonbinding.
''I'm not sure it was his proudest moment either,'' Silver said.
Changing the moratorium was discussed, and Silver said no one had a good solution. Some ideas bandied about in recent days include having a memo of understanding that could be executed to essentially lock in the commitment while the budgets for the new league year are still being worked out, or simply shortening the moratorium.
''It was not a great look,'' Silver said. ''It's not what we want to see happen in the moratorium period. It wasn't created so players could enter into in essence oral agreements only to have those agreements superseded by binding agreements. Of course, under our collective bargaining agreement, there's no dispute that only a signed agreement is binding. But there was a breakdown in the system to a certain extent.''
That is a tough one. I don't think the players' union would be in favour of making verbal agreements binding. It would be an unusual precedent, and considering the promises that teams make to players and subsequently break ("Oh, we're definitely not trading you!"), it wouldn't exactly be fair. It should be noted that DeAndre Jordan is the exception, not the rule, when it comes to backing out of a verbal commitment. It's not like it's a common problem, and it ultimately comes down to the character and scruples of the individual player.
To that end, however...does it need to be emphasised that players shouldn't commit to a team until they're absolutely, absolutely sure they want to go there? Do players need to be taught that if they're on the fence or just not 100% sure, it would be more appropriate to basically say "I'm happy with the terms and I'm leaning towards accepting them, but I want to hear my current team out before I make a final decision"? Again, that's a tough one. It feels like something should be done, but it was just one player. If free agents were backing out of verbal agreements left and right, I'd suggest some immediate action be taken. As it is, it's something to keep mulling over.
The league is looking into not only widening the escape routes - the path next to the basket supports where players can decelerate in while hopefully not crashing into photographers and fans - but also adding a second one of those on each side of a basket for next season.
Sounds good. Anything that protects players and aims to reduce the risk of injury is a good idea.
While it seems nobody likes Hack-A-Shaq - the mechanism where teams foul a player intentionally to send him to the line knowing the odds aren't high that he'll make both free throws - it might still be part of the NBA world.
Ratings for NBA games don't show that people aren't watching because of Hack-a-Anyone. And it might serve as a signal to young players about the importance of making foul shots.
''There is a sense, especially from the basketball people, that it would be sending the wrong message to the larger basketball community - particularly youth basketball - to de-emphasize the need for guys to hit free throws,'' Silver said.
I would still argue that it also sends a bad message that instead of playing actual defense, actually playing basketball, you can intentionally commit an infraction (ie. something you're not technically supposed to do) as a means of stopping the other team, and that's perfectly sporting. Make your damn free throws, no question, but play some damn defense, too.
Of course, if the ratings aren't suffering, GMs aren't worried about it, and we're only talking about a few notoriously poor free throw shooters...well, it's hard to argue that stamping it out is of the highest priority. To that end, I'd suggest inconsistencies with blocking/charging calls and continuations are more pressing issues, in terms of rules and the way the game is officiated.
Silver said the notion that the Milwaukee Bucks could move to Las Vegas ''is not realistic in the short term.''
The Wisconsin Senate could vote as early as Wednesday on a plan to direct $55 million in state money as part of the public financing plan for a new arena, one where the Bucks' current and former ownership have committed to giving another $250 million toward.
''My hope is that team is not going to relocate,'' Silver said.
I wasn't aware that it was a realistic possibility. "Las Vegas Bucks" would be a bit on the nose...hopefully they wouldn't change their branding to dollar signs and whatnot, should that somehow happen.
The league has had a 90-second countdown clock in arenas to ensure that games start on time after starting lineups are introduced, and the same thinking may soon be applied to stoppages between quarters and for timeouts.
I'm all for that, but I also think there should be a limit on how long it takes referees to review calls. I do believe in the value of replay calls, but it's ridiculous how long officials sometimes take on replay reviews, especially when the call is pretty clear to everyone else who's watching that same footage. I think Jeff Van Gundy's suggestion has merit here: if it takes five minutes of replays to get the call right, let the original one stand.
