If the NBA Playoffs Went to 1-16 Seeding

Would these playoffs be better? Yes or yes? pic.twitter.com/Af3itJRbYx

— Kirk Goldsberry (@kirkgoldsberry) April 13, 2019

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.

Team	Second Round	Conf Finals	NBA Finals	Champion
Milwaukee	96.60%	75.35%	63.46%	47.47%
Detroit	3.40%	0.42%	0.08%	0.01%
Utah	59.82%	15.78%	9.67%	4.60%
Boston	40.18%	8.45%	5.00%	2.05%
Denver	77.05%	44.31%	10.36%	4.22%
LA Clippers	22.95%	6.39%	0.59%	0.14%
Portland	70.71%	38.59%	9.51%	3.54%
San Antonio	29.29%	10.71%	1.33%	0.23%
Toronto	86.92%	63.99%	35.58%	14.41%
Orlando	13.08%	4.42%	0.87%	0.10%
Philadelphia	46.13%	13.48%	4.29%	0.91%
Oklahoma City	53.87%	18.11%	5.91%	1.46%
Golden State	89.64%	58.57%	34.96%	15.47%
Brooklyn	10.36%	2.04%	0.36%	0.03%
Houston	62.95%	26.05%	12.90%	4.37%
Indiana	37.05%	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 Conf	Actual	Alt Bracket	Dif
Golden State	2.95	2.60	-0.35
Denver	3.15	2.84	-0.31
Portland	3.19	2.89	-0.31
Houston	3.19	2.94	-0.25
Utah	2.63	2.94	0.31
Oklahoma City	2.62	2.88	0.25
San Antonio	2.58	2.86	0.28
LA Clippers	2.43	2.84	0.41
Eastern Conf
Milwaukee	2.72	2.39	-0.33
Toronto	2.97	2.69	-0.27
Philadelphia	3.14	2.93	-0.21
Boston	3.19	2.88	-0.31
Indiana	2.62	2.87	0.26
Brooklyn	2.58	2.74	0.16
Orlando	2.44	2.78	0.33
Detroit	2.27	2.62	0.35

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:

Team	Second Round	Conf Finals	NBA Finals	Champion
Western Conf
Golden State	87.95%	54.43%	38.70%	16.28%
LA Clippers	12.05%	2.18%	0.65%	0.07%
Houston	48.78%	20.38%	11.81%	3.35%
Utah	51.22%	23.01%	14.02%	4.71%
Portland	59.32%	34.80%	13.27%	3.49%
Oklahoma City	40.68%	19.13%	5.99%	1.17%
Denver	69.86%	36.00%	13.46%	3.63%
San Antonio	30.14%	10.07%	2.10%	0.31%
Eastern Conf
Milwaukee	96.20%	80.19%	62.56%	48.62%
Detroit	3.80%	0.64%	0.10%	0.02%
Boston	60.45%	12.79%	6.19%	2.50%
Indiana	39.55%	6.38%	2.48%	0.82%
Philadelphia	71.64%	22.76%	3.91%	0.95%
Brooklyn	28.36%	4.11%	0.30%	0.02%
Toronto	86.19%	67.50%	23.92%	13.98%
Orlando	13.81%	5.63%	0.54%	0.08%

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

Western Conf	Pyth	Actual	Alt HFA	Dif
Golden State	0.719	87.42%	87.95%	0.53%
Denver	0.647	70.08%	69.86%	-0.22%
Portland	0.649	57.81%	59.32%	1.51%
Houston	0.670	48.09%	48.78%	0.69%
Utah	0.687	51.91%	51.22%	-0.69%
Oklahoma City	0.622	42.19%	40.68%	-1.51%
San Antonio	0.563	29.92%	30.14%	0.22%
LA Clippers	0.529	12.58%	12.05%	-0.53%
Eastern Conf
Milwaukee	0.782	96.44%	96.20%	-0.24%
Toronto	0.709	86.72%	86.19%	-0.53%
Philadelphia	0.597	72.47%	71.64%	-0.83%
Boston	0.659	60.56%	60.45%	-0.11%
Indiana	0.625	39.44%	39.55%	0.11%
Brooklyn	0.500	27.53%	28.36%	0.83%
Orlando	0.527	13.28%	13.81%	0.53%
Detroit	0.488	3.56%	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.