The NBA's new playoff play-in scenario is indeed an exciting new addition to the bubble inside Walt Disney World. In fact, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver likes it so much that he hinted that the league will likely be making it a permanent fixture in the upcoming seasons.
Per Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated, Silver bared that nothing is set in stone yet, but they will likely come up with something similar to the current formula implemented this year.
“I do see this as something we would embrace going forward,” the NBA's top executive said. “As you know I've been talking about it for a while. We saw this as an opportunity to institute a form of it. I'm not sure if this would be the exact format going forward. But this is something we'd like to see stay.”
Considering the extremely tight race for that eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference prior to the resumption of the season, the NBA imposed the new rule to break a possible tie. The mini-tournament pits the No. 8 against the No. 9 seeds for a chance to secure a playoff berth against the number one seed Los Angeles Lakers. The Portland Trailblazers (35-39) secured that 8th slot on Thursday, while the Memphis Grizzlies (34-39) finished ninth.
The No. 9 seed will need to win twice to make the playoffs, while the no.8 just needs one win.
While the play-in did add a certain degree of excitement for that last playoff berth, the NBA does need to fine-tune some details about it in the future.
For instance, the Blazers were able to play one game more than the Suns and the Grizzlies prior to the suspension of the season. This, of course, gave them a slight edge in the win column, which proved to be crucial. There's also no mechanism where the No. 10 or below teams can get into the playoffs. This caused quite the controversy, considering the Suns got eliminated even though they finished with an identical record with the Grizzles and went 8-0 inside the bubble.
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