Saturday, April 13, 2019

If the NBA Playoffs Went to 1-16 Seeding

There's been some talk in the past few years about changing the NBA playoffs to straight 1-16 seeding: in other words, conferences would be thrown out, and the top 16 best records would make the playoffs and be seeded as such.

The largest hurdle involved is the travel: you would have a bunch of cross-country matchups throughout the entire playoffs. The only way to make it work would be going to a 2-3-2 format to help alleviate changing cities, which I previously determined would not have a huge effect on the higher seed's win probability.


TeamSecond RoundConf FinalsNBA FinalsChampion
Milwaukee96.60%75.35%63.46%47.47%
Detroit3.40%0.42%0.08%0.01%
Utah59.82%15.78%9.67%4.60%
Boston40.18%8.45%5.00%2.05%
Denver77.05%44.31%10.36%4.22%
LA Clippers22.95%6.39%0.59%0.14%
Portland70.71%38.59%9.51%3.54%
San Antonio29.29%10.71%1.33%0.23%
Toronto86.92%63.99%35.58%14.41%
Orlando13.08%4.42%0.87%0.10%
Philadelphia46.13%13.48%4.29%0.91%
Oklahoma City53.87%18.11%5.91%1.46%
Golden State89.64%58.57%34.96%15.47%
Brooklyn10.36%2.04%0.36%0.03%
Houston62.95%26.05%12.90%4.37%
Indiana37.05%13.34%5.13%0.99%


It would certainly make for more interesting matchups, and slightly more parity, but the expected conference finals would remain the same: Milwaukee/Toronto/Golden State/Denver. 

The hurdle to this happening is not really travel, or unfairness to the higher seeds: it's gate receipts. Compare Boston, who is expected to get 3.2 home games under the current format. They now only get 2.9 home games as the underdog, even though they would get Game 5 at home. 

The better teams get less home games throughout by missing out on Game 5 at home (if you're in either conference):


Western ConfActualAlt BracketDif
Golden State2.952.60-0.35
Denver3.152.84-0.31
Portland3.192.89-0.31
Houston3.192.94-0.25
Utah2.632.940.31
Oklahoma City2.622.880.25
San Antonio2.582.860.28
LA Clippers2.432.840.41
Eastern Conf
Milwaukee2.722.39-0.33
Toronto2.972.69-0.27
Philadelphia3.142.93-0.21
Boston3.192.88-0.31
Indiana2.622.870.26
Brooklyn2.582.740.16
Orlando2.442.780.33
Detroit2.272.620.35
Since this is a zero-sum game, half of the teams in the playoffs would miss out on home games, which makes it tough to pass a two-thirds majority.

How Much 2-3-2 Home Court Affects Win Probability

Up until 2014, the NBA Finals had been a 2-3-2 format, where the lower seed hosted Games 3-5 (as opposed to the rest of the series which went 2-2-1-1-1, where the lower seed hosted Games 3, 4, and 6). In theory, if the higher seed lost Game 1 or 2, they could lose the series without being able to utilize the rest of their home court advantage.

How much does this really penalize the higher seed? Home court isn't flipping, just the ordering of home court.

I previously simulated this year's playoffs here. Here's how the new odds would look if every series changed to 2-3-2:


TeamSecond RoundConf FinalsNBA FinalsChampion
Western Conf
Golden State87.95%54.43%38.70%16.28%
LA Clippers12.05%2.18%0.65%0.07%
Houston48.78%20.38%11.81%3.35%
Utah51.22%23.01%14.02%4.71%
Portland59.32%34.80%13.27%3.49%
Oklahoma City40.68%19.13%5.99%1.17%
Denver69.86%36.00%13.46%3.63%
San Antonio30.14%10.07%2.10%0.31%
Eastern Conf
Milwaukee96.20%80.19%62.56%48.62%
Detroit3.80%0.64%0.10%0.02%
Boston60.45%12.79%6.19%2.50%
Indiana39.55%6.38%2.48%0.82%
Philadelphia71.64%22.76%3.91%0.95%
Brooklyn28.36%4.11%0.30%0.02%
Toronto86.19%67.50%23.92%13.98%
Orlando13.81%5.63%0.54%0.08%

The differences are fairly marginal, improving most underdogs in the first round by less than 1%:

Western ConfPythActualAlt HFADif
Golden State0.71987.42%87.95%0.53%
Denver0.64770.08%69.86%-0.22%
Portland0.64957.81%59.32%1.51%
Houston0.67048.09%48.78%0.69%
Utah0.68751.91%51.22%-0.69%
Oklahoma City0.62242.19%40.68%-1.51%
San Antonio0.56329.92%30.14%0.22%
LA Clippers0.52912.58%12.05%-0.53%
Eastern Conf
Milwaukee0.78296.44%96.20%-0.24%
Toronto0.70986.72%86.19%-0.53%
Philadelphia0.59772.47%71.64%-0.83%
Boston0.65960.56%60.45%-0.11%
Indiana0.62539.44%39.55%0.11%
Brooklyn0.50027.53%28.36%0.83%
Orlando0.52713.28%13.81%0.53%
Detroit0.4883.56%3.80%0.24%

Golden State and Portland actually go up slightly, and I reran the sims a couple of times and got that result every time. So it doesn't appear to be randomness in the sim results.