NBA Playoffs To Expand To Twenty Teams? Mark Cuban Thinks They Should

Never afraid to speak his mind, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban took to his Cyberdust app recently to propose even more changes to the NBA playoffs.

As reported by Sports Illustrated, Cuban proposed a scenario in which 10 teams in each conference make the playoffs, leaving the combined total of teams in both conferences at twenty.

“The increased number would reduce the chances of good teams missing the playoffs in the stronger conference,” wrote Cuban. “It would make it harder to tank since the chances of making the playoffs increased.”

Mark also felt the NBA playoff expansion would “keep things interesting for fans longer into the season.” And while Commissioner Adam Silver has not addressed this specific format change at all recently, there are some voices out there that share Cuban’s assessment.

SB Nation, for example, feels the NBA should simply embrace the obscure amount of bad teams that permeate the NBA landscape.

“The idea that bad teams don’t belong in the postseason ignores a decade of bad NBA teams in the playoffs. Let’s stop worrying and embrace change.”

Further, while they address the obvious issue of bad teams being rewarded for mediocrity, the writer does point out that bad teams — specifically in the Eastern Conference — are already being rewarded.

“Neither the Celtics nor the Nets had any business in the postseason this past season, and the East’s No. 8 seed — which hasn’t had a winning record since 2005 — has been a hilarious joke for the better part of a decade.”

So will Adam Silver alter the NBA playoffs any further than he is already planning? As reported by Inquisitr, Silver recently addressed the idea of wiping out home court advantage for division winners by reseeding the top eight teams in the order of their record.

The only concern around making this change was whether or not it’s conceivable that a division winner could end up missing the playoffs altogether if their record falls below the other wild card teams.

Addressing a panel discussion at the Beyond Sport United program, Silver scoffed at that notion.

“First of all, it’s never happened before that a division winner did not finish within the top eight, and our basketball analytics folks calculate that there’s less than a 5 percent chance that it would happen.”

However, Silver did not rule out the possibility.

“Where we are leaning right now is that we would not guarantee a spot for a division winner in part because it’s so unlikely to happen, and No. 2 if it does happen it would be potentially confusing to fans. No. 3, you would be displacing a team that did have a top-eight record.”

[Photo credit: Stephen Dunn / Getty Images]