The NBA Should Re-Seed After Each Round of the Playoffs

The NBA Finals are now over and many would consider the 2011 NBA Playoffs to be a successful few weeks. There were some surprises, some thrilling comebacks and in the end Lebron James and company ended up in the Finals against one of the best players that hasn't won a championship yet. Just because the 2011 NBA Playoffs were enjoyable does not mean there shouldn't be any changes next year. The NBA Playoffs need to borrow a page from the NHL playoffs and re-seed after each round.

The NBA regular season is already largely irrelevant because they let half the teams in the league take part in the playoffs. If a team can hover around .500 for the entire regular season and still have a shot a the championship then you're already urging fans to ignore the regular season. To ensure that the regular season is important the best thing the NBA can do'"other than change the number of playoff teams'"is to make the number one seed in the NBA Playoffs even more important than ever.

Currently the number one seed means playing the number eight seed'"usually the worst team in the conference'"in the first round and also receiving home court advantage throughout the playoffs. As long as the NBA doesn't re-seed teams after each playoff round the number one seed can run into some bad luck in the match ups.

For example, let's say the number one seed and number two seed both advance to the second round. The number one seed plays the winner of the fourth seed vs. the fifth seed while the second seed plays the winner of the third seed vs. the sixth seed. If the sixth seed upsets the third seed then no matter who the first seed plays'"the fourth or fifth seed'"the second seed is playing the worse team according to the regular season.

Why should the number one seed be punished after doing nothing wrong in the first round? The first seed could sweep their first round opponent and win every game by forty points and the second seed could barely get by in a seven game series and the second seed could still end up with the easier match up in the second round.

If there is re-seeding after each round then the first seed is guaranteed the favorable match up in each and every round.