The NBA recently sent a proposal of changes that could potentially take effect in the 2021-22 season. One of the proposed amendments is a reseeding of the four Conference Finalists based on their regular season records.
Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr spoke about the proposals and completely welcomed the idea of possibly having the two best teams gut it out for the NBA championship in June, per Logan Murdock of NBC Sports.
Steve Kerr said he’d also be open to re-seeding in the playoffs and the idea that he could play a Western Conference team in Finals because it would mean they’d play the best team. pic.twitter.com/5QYqzBLiTY
— Logan Murdock (@loganmmurdock) December 21, 2019
The league has long been looking for a solution to make the two best teams square off in the NBA Finals.
Perhaps one of the more recent examples where we had a better conference finals series than the NBA Finals happened during the 2018 playoffs.
Kerr's Warriors and the Houston Rockets were considered the two best teams in the league at that time. Houston had just capped off a 65-17 season, locking up the top seed in the West. The Warriors, on the other hand, were the defending champions and still the heavy favorites to repeat.
Everyone had basically expected the two juggernaut teams to go on a collision course in the Western Conference Finals. And they did, as they ended up putting together a classic 7-game series that concluded with the Warriors coming back from a 2-3 deficit to win in Games 6 and 7.
At that point, however, everyone knew that whoever came out on top of the West would eventually defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals. Fans and analysts even dubbed that series as the real Finals.
Some have pitched that the league should do a 1-through-16 seeding that completely disregards conferences. However, the league might not be prepared for a drastic change like that, while also considering logistics and travel issues.
Meanwhile, re-seeding might be an amicable and more feasible solution that reduces the possibility of lengthy flight schedule throughout the entirety of playoffs. And as mentioned, it gives the league an opportunity to pit the real two best teams – like the Warriors and Rockets in 2018 – in the NBA Finals.
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