Adam Silver “intrigued” at thought of 1-16 NBA Playoff format

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NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. Photo Credit: Associated Press

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver checked in with Scoop B Radio’s Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson. Press Play Below To Listen! 

Many like to whine about how the NBA’s Western Conference is superior to the Eastern Conference.

Furthermore, some have presented the argument that some Western conference teams finished the season with good records at the end of the season, yet still miss the playoffs because the conference is just that good.

While we wait for what’s to come of that, this season, the NBA introduced a new format for their All-Star selection.

The purpose? To make the game more competitive. Guess what? It worked!

Million dollar question: Would the NBA make a bold move and amend the current playoff format where teams seeded 1-16 play each against each other; irrespective of conferences?

Ask the man in charge!

“I don’t think that you will see it in the near future,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told Frederick Ennette on the Unnecessary Roughness Podcast.

“Each time we study it, we’re not convinced that the benefits of a 1-16 format outweigh the increased travel for the teams.”

 

Added Commissioner Silver:

“The notion of Portland playing Miami in the first round or the Lakers playing the Celtics, until we have a significant change in the format of our schedule where we can build in more rest days or travel changes where planes get faster I don’t think it will change in the short term future. We will continue to study it, and I’m intrigued by it but we’re not ready to make the change.”

Silver also weighed in on the number of injuries around the NBA this season.

As with any sport, injuries happen every year in the NBA. However, this year it feels like more players are getting injured more often than they have in previous seasons.

Several household names around the NBA have suffered lengthy injuries this season.

Insert DeMarcus Cousins, Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward who all suffered season-ending injuries. The Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry and the Philadelphia 76ers’ Joel Embiid also had injuries before their respective team’s first-round matchups.

At one point all four of the Warriors’ all-stars were injured at once. Over the last few years, some experts and former players have said that because the game is played so much different than it was 50 years ago when the 82-game season was introduced, that it may be time to consider shortening the regular season.

Commissioner Silver doesn’t believe shortening the season will decrease the amount of injuries especially because there are no facts or evidence to support the claim that injuries have increased over the years.

“The answer to that is I don’t know,” said Silver.

“We’ve had an 82 game schedule for over 50 years, that doesn’t mean that it’s the optimal number of games. But it’s also not clear that the number of injuries have gone up. We don’t have great longitudinal data over the last 50 years, so it’s very hard to make comparisons because how injuries have been categorized has changed, how rest has been categorized has changed and you would like to believe that with all of the enormous additional resources that have been focused on player health that we’re keeping our players healthy for longer periods of time.”  

With the NBA’s continued evolvement, Silver does believe that the league has a responsibility to continue to research methods to shorten the recovery time for player injuries and ultimately keep players healthy.

“The game is more physical than it used to be,” he said.

“My sense is that guys are playing harder night in and night out than they once did because there is so much more attention on every moment of the game that we have an obligation to continue to look at the length of the season.”

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