NBA To Seed Playoffs Entirely on Record

By Thomas Gibbons
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Updated: September 10, 2015

The NBA will now seed playoff teams solely by their record, throwing out the top-four protection for teams who win their divisions, this change to the playoff rankings will be effective immediately with the 2015-2106 season, the league announced Tuesday.

Previously with the old system, division winners were guaranteed no worse than the No. 4 seed. This soon became heavily criticized last season.

Last season, Portland ended up No. 4 in the powerful Western Conference despite having the sixth-best record in the conference. Now with this being implemented, the difference is huge when it comes to difficulty of first round opponent and home court advantage.

Along with the new seeding, the Board also approved changes to the tiebreaker system. Head-to-head results have become the first criterion to break ties for playoff seeding and home-court advantage between two teams with identical regular-season records; the second criterion is whether a team won its division. Under the old tiebreak system, a division winner was awarded the higher seed and received home-court advantage in a series if the two teams met in the playoffs.

The new playoff seeding is definitely a positive for the NBA. While division leaders tend to have the best records most of the time, some of those second of third place teams may beat out a division leader in another division. Yes, being at the top of the division should give you some advantage in the conference realm of things, but now it is fair for all. Produce the best record, you get the high seed.