Play-In Tournament? An Ode to The NBA Bubble.
About this time four years ago the world came to a halt. The Lakers had just beat the Clippers and Bucks in back to back games, culminating in LeBron James pounding his chest along the baseline of Crypto Arena. The season was headed in the right direction and the world began to murmur, “Is 2018 LeBron back?”
A few days later, after a quick game of tag in the locker room by Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell, the NBA and subsequently the world shut down. Takeout food, The Last Dance, crypto trading and an uprise in human rage began to take hold as we all wondered, what was going to happen next?
Then, like a phoenix (sun) rising from the ashes, everyone turned off Netflix, stopped walking around the block and drinking wine at 2 PM, for the basketball world had come back to life via the NBA Bubble. Ladies and Gentlemen - we were going to Disney World!
Vowing to create a fair system of play in order to compress the back half of the season and determine who would be in the NBA Playoffs, The NBA Board of Governors, developed the NBA play-in tournament.
A bit different from today’s style, the original play-in tournament had the 8th and 9th seed teams playing 1-2 games if they were within 4 games of each other in the final standings. The 2 game series would end in the first game if the 8th seed won or the series would extend to a second 'winner takes all’ game format if the 9th seed won the first game.
Fast forward to today and we have the more traditional play-in tournament developed for the 2021 season. A full break down of the history and updated play-in tournament rules can be seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_play-in_tournament (donate if you have money)
I’m not a fan of the current system. Taking a look at the final NBA standings by year for the last decade, there appears to be a trend. In general, the top 6 teams in each conference are on a different level. They are clearly the better teams and deserve a playoff bid.
As you take a look at 7-10 it varies year by year. Some years each of those teams are within 3-4 games of each other and other years they may be 6-7 games within each other, with a visible drop off in specific years at the 9 and 10 seeds.
This year it varies by conference. In the West, teams 5-10 are within 4-5 games of each other. In the East, teams 5-10 are within 8-9 games of each other. It doesn’t appear to be a fair system, by conference, to have teams 7-10 eligible to make the playoffs.
I think the NBA Bubble had it right. It took the best of both worlds from the antiquated 1-8 seed system and the current play-in system.
With the NBA Bubble system, teams have the chance to fight for the top 7 seeds in their respective conferences. Here, the top 6, and most likely the best teams in each conference, make the playoffs, the 7th seed is fought for down to the wire, and there remains a bit of excitement for the 8th and 9th seed to battle it out for the final playoff spot.
It’s not fair, in the current system, for the 7th seed to potentially lose two games back to game and the 10th best team in the conference to make the playoffs. Hell, you can lose two games back to back in the NBA finals and still win it all (Cavs 2016, Bucks 2021) and in today’s NBA even the top seed can lose back to back games on any given stretch.
A lot of things have changed since 2020 and the NBA play-in tournament is one of them. If you would have told me four years ago today that this weekend I’d see the Laker’s Spencer Dinwiddie pounding his chest along the baseline of Crypto Arena celebrating a block against the Milwaukee Buck's Dame Lillard to seal the game, I would have thought you were crazy!
With time comes change, and although change can be good, I don’t love what the NBA play-in tournament has become.
To Chris Paul, Adam Silver, Rajon Rondo’s brother, and the rest of the NBA, let’s bring back the NBA Bubble play-in tournament system. It was fair, just and exactly what the league needed.
Until next time, F*ck it, NBA Bubble Highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouc3ly_RRVA&t=65s
