With LeBron James going to the Los Angeles Lakers and DeMarcus Cousins taking a big pay cut to sign with the Golden State Warriors, there is no question that the West is the superior conference.
L.A. Clippers guard Lou Williams thinks that these last few moves could push the league to finally make a change in the playoff formatting.
Here comes the new playoff format.
— Lou Williams (@TeamLou23) July 3, 2018
There has been some momentum the last few years for eliminating the conference format in the playoffs, and just seeding the teams one through 16. The one big issue with making this type of change is the travel concerns it could put on teams. Having the Washington Wizards play the Portland Trail Blazers in a first-round series would be a nightmare, travel-wise, and it might take a lot of players. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver voiced those same concerns earlier this year via CBS Sports:
I've said in the past, the obstacle is travel, and it's not tradition in my mind, at least. It's that as we've added an extra week to the regular season, as we've tried to reduce the number of back-to-backs, that we are concerned about teams crisscrossing the country in the first round, for example. We are just concerned about the overall travel that we would have in the top 16 teams.
So we're going to continue to look at that. It's still my hope that we're going to figure out ways. Maybe ultimately you have to add even more days to the season to spread it out a little bit more to deal with the travel. Maybe air travel will get better. All things we'll keep looking at.
This is probably not something that would be decided on by this upcoming season, but look for it to be something that gains more and more momentum in the coming years.
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