If Seattle gets a team, possible realignment?

[jmmontoro]

I was thinking that if Seattle gets a team back it wouldn't make sense to send them to the pacific division with Portland so close and in another division. So I thought this would be the most logical realignment of the western divisions. No more northwest, and a couple of moves.

Pacific division: Clippers, Lakers, SuperSonics, Trail Blazers & Warriors. Kings slot is filled with SuperSonics, Suns leave to southwest division and are replaced by Trail Blazers.
Southwest division: Mavericks, Pelicans, Rockets, Spurs & Suns. Grizzlies leave to a new midwest division and are replaced by Suns.
Midwest division: Grizzlies, Jazz, Nuggets, Timberwolves & Thunder. The remaining four members of the defunct northwest division plus the Grizzlies.

[Andrew]

That could certainly work, but considering they've left the Thunder in the Northwest Division, it wouldn't surprise me if they kept the potential new Sonics team in the Pacific Division.

[jmmontoro]

The league most definitely won't do it for the 13-14 season, but it doesn't make any sense if they don't do it for the next. Either way don't see the Sonics reuniting with their old division friends. Of course, if and only if.

[Andrew]

It hasn't made sense for them to keep the Thunder in the Northwest Division either, but they haven't shown much inclination to do anything about it.

[Patr1ck]

They should just remove the region naming for divisions.

[jmmontoro]

They should just remove the region naming for divisions.

Like pool a, b & c (or 1, 2 & 3)? And just shuffle them every season? It would improve competitiveness. The Thunder are very good, but I'm not sure they would've been the wests 1 seed if they had other teams in their division.

[jmmontoro]

It hasn't made sense for them to keep the Thunder in the Northwest Division either, but they haven't shown much inclination to do anything about it.

Do you know if OKC (or others in NW division) receives any compensation for their overspending in traveling? It's not their fault the league doesn't give them closer matchups.

[benji]

The divisions barely matter in the scheduling. I believe how it's done is that you play every team in the other conference two games, every team in your division four games, and three of the five teams in the other two divisions four games. The remaining four teams you play three games with.

The Thunder for example played every East team twice, and every West team except for the Rockets, Clippers, Grizzlies and Kings four times. The Timberwolves did the same except the Lakers instead of the Clippers.

It hasn't made sense for them to keep the Thunder in the Northwest Division either, but they haven't shown much inclination to do anything about it.

Yes, it does because they're the farthest North team left outside California. Unless you go back to two divisions or allow one division to have six and another to have four.

Take a look at the map here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_B ... tion#Teams

Memphis is much closer to the Texas/NO teams than it is to Minnesota, let alone Denver and Utah. (OKC for example is about 800 miles from Minneapolis and 675 from Denver. Memphis is 850 and 1100.)

The real problem is that from a geographical standpoint you have an "Eastern" team in the West in Minnesota. (And you could argue Memphis should be in the East as well. And even possibly another in New Orleans.)

So clearly what they need to do is add another team. I say bring back the Kings. But make them play in Kansas City/Omaha again with some St. Louis games thrown in. Then move Minnesota into the Central Division. We could also add another team in Vancouver and move Memphis to the Southeast. Then you could do three closer knit divisions in the West.

[jmmontoro]

The divisions barely matter in the scheduling. I believe how it's done is that you play every team in the other conference two games, every team in your division four games, and three of the five teams in the other two divisions four games. The remaining four teams you play three games with.

You're right about that, it doesn't really matter for scheduling, and it barely affects a team record. But the divisions exist for a reason and awards are given to their winners.
The main idea is to have 3 of the top 4 teams in the conference playoffs from 3 different regions (divisions) that's why they give the winners a guaranteed minimum 4th seed.
And it's just plain weird that in Oklahoma they have "Northwest Division Champions" banners.
Probably divisions it's not the right way to go, maybe they should just have the conferences and just random pick which 6 teams you play 4 times and which 4 teams you play 3 times and rotate from there.

[[Q]]

It hasn't made sense for them to keep the Thunder in the Northwest Division either, but they haven't shown much inclination to do anything about it.

Do you know if OKC (or others in NW division) receives any compensation for their overspending in traveling? It's not their fault the league doesn't give them closer matchups.

pretty sure portland travels the most out of every team. i read an article about that a few months back

[benji]

I believe the true northwestern teams (Portland and formerly Seattle and Vancouver) have always held those titles. The only teams within 950 miles of Portland are the Warriors, Kings and Jazz. This was one of the problems with Vancouver. Nobody but Seattle and Portland were that close.

Minnesota is far far away from their conference rivals but they're quite close to plenty of Eastern teams.

I think the longest distance in the NBA is Portland and Miami. Seattle and Vancouver to Miami would obviously be farther.

EDIT: This is cool, just found it, a lot easier than regular distance maps: http://www.sportmapworld.com/map/basket ... erica/nba/

Outdated since it has the Nets in Newark still.

[jmmontoro]

I come to understand why the league doesn't do anything about this.
Doesn't matter how tidy it looks or how pretty the map will be with all divisions making "sense", all of this only affects 4 games per team.
Pointless to even bother.
I do like the remove divisions idea. If they hold no regional significance they have no purpose to serve.
Just do a lottery to see what 10 teams you play an additional game.
Maybe instead of one more game against 10 teams, let teams pick a marquee rivalry team (pick only one and get picked only once) which they'll play 6 times instead of just 3 and random pick the 4 teams you'll play an additional game in the conference.

[NovU]

Isn't the league thinking about expanding the league worldwide? Like possibly we could be seeing Paris Escargots, Manila Pacmans, or Shanghai Kung Pao Chickens? If traveling wasn't an issue, I'd love to witness a creation of foreign division in future. And only if then, NBA champions could justify calling themselves world chumpions.

[[Q]]

they've kicked around the idea of a european division, i would guess london, paris, madrid, barca would be in the mix but again travel would suck for both the european teams on the road plus the visiting teams. i think vancouver or mexico city are more likely to happen at this point unless adam silver does something crazy in the near future

[Andrew]

The suggestion has been that all the games against the European Division would be played early on, but I can still see it being an unpopular idea. I like the idea of a holding a champions tournament every year or every couple of years, similar to the old McDonalds Open, not so much international divisions in regular NBA play.