What if the NBA's playoff bracket evolved past wins and losses?
The league has already modernized postseason seeding by eliminating incentives for division winners. It has also entertained the idea of doing away with conferences altogether and awarding playoff slots to the 16 best records.
But we're going a step further, journeying beyond the win columns into an imaginary world where the Association's playoff race is more nuanced. To do this, we'll be using net rating and Basketball-Reference.com's Simple Rating System (SRS), which ranks teams by cumulatively measuring point differential and strength of schedule.
The idea here is to see how much different the NBA's playoff bracket would look if shaped using alternative means.
Eastern Conference
For reference, here's how the Eastern Conference's playoff picture would shake out if the postseason tipped off immediately after the All-Star break:
Net Rating/SRS Bracket
Adjusted-Round Matchups:
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Article written by Dan Favale
If Records Weren’t Everything, How Would NBA Playoff Bracket Look?
February 15th, 2016 by Dan Favale Leave a reply »
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