FanHouse

The Rotation is a weekly study on the NBA by one of our All-Star voices. In rotation this week is Matt Watson.

For 11 months of the year, I have no use for college basketball. I'll take the NBA over the amateurs every day of those 48 weeks. But come tournament time, I join millions of other casual fans in rooting for underdogs I couldn't place on a map. The NCAA tournament has transcended the sport and become ingrained in our culture, so much so that even non-fans and NBA elitists (*raises hand*) get swept up in the fun. Why can't people get this excited about my beloved NBA?

There's no comparison between the levels of play. (For a fan of the pros, the fact that most student athletes "turn pro in something other than sports" ought to be a dirty little secret, not a selling point -- I want the world's best athletes, not one or two guys with NBA potential surrounded by future accountants.)

But there are two ways I think the NBA could learn from the way March Madness draws in general fans.

1. Seed Everyone Together. I can't think of a single reason why an inferior team should ever be allowed into the playoffs when a better option exists.

So first and foremost, the NBA needs to follow the NCAA's example here. In lieu of a selection committee, I endorse seeding teams 1-16 regardless of conference. (Last year's NBA Finals weren't technically over until the Spurs swept the Cavaliers, but I'm guessing they started mapping the parade the moment the Spurs dispatched the Jazz in the Western Conference Finals.)

Every time this idea gets brought up, someone brings up the fact that the NBA has an unbalanced schedule. If teams are going to be lumped into one giant bracket, they should all have the same schedule, right? A balanced schedule could be achieved by extending the regular season just five games, allowing each team to play every other team three times. (And as an added bonus, the odd number of head-to-head matchups would help with tie-breakers.)

Or, we could just leave it alone. The current system already relies on unbalanced schedules to decide playoff spots. Division rivals square off four times a year, but it's the schedule-maker's whim if teams in the same conference but different divisions square off three or four times in any given year. Plus, the NBA already grants the team with the better record home court advantage in the NBA Finals without regard to an unbalanced schedule -- there's no real reason why the same standard can't be applied to league-wide seeding. It's not completely ideal, but it's still better.

2. Start This Thing Off With a Big Bang. The NCAA tournament explodes onto so many channels at once. For those of us who take the day off work and sit in front of a TV for 12 hours, working the remote effectively is practically a sport of endurance and finesse unto itself. But all of the activity reinforces the idea that the start of the tournament is a singular event.

The NBA eases into its playoffs with a couple of games a night, designed to give fans of the league a chance to sample everything. This marathon takes at least two rounds before catching any sort of momentum. With every game televised for a national audience in its entirety, each round can take weeks to complete.

I say schedule a full slate of games the first Friday and Saturday: eight games on both days with every team playing each day. Start things off in the afternoon and continue it through the night, with ABC, TNT and ESPN all televising games at the same time. Convince hardcore fans to plan their entire weekend around the event, or better yet, organize pilgrimages to Las Vegas.

Who's Going to Pay For This? I know that each of my suggestions are pointless if they can't be justified to the beancounters. For starters, it's highly likely that ABC, TNT, and ESPN would be loathe to simultaneously share playoff programming -- just as CBS would be loathe to see the NCAA sell off a bracket or two to its competitors.

Similarly, adding games to the regular season to balance out schedules would probably require across-the-board raises to every NBA contract to compensate for the extra games. And while they were complaining, I'm sure the players also wouldn't be crazy about the relentless travel this kind of schedule would necessitate.

But the payoff to all this could be monumental, and David Stern is a guy who is willing to make people unhappy now for the sake of the league's future. If the networks are unhappy now, they won't be when the NBA postseason becomes a worldwide holiday for fans. (You know that annual article about how many hours of productivity are wasted on the early rounds of March Madness? Imagine that on the scale of the NBA's global audience.)

Yes, cross-scheduling will inevitably result in viewer cannibalization. But the NCAA has demonstrated how that experience can simply drive devoted users online, where you can sell ads for them a second time. No, it's not TV money yet. But it is where the future of the league's fanbase lives.

Revisionist History

Here's how last year's playoffs would have been seeded in a 1-16 scheme, and my best guess at what would have happened:



I hear your objection: Last year's first-round meeting between the Warriors and Mavericks was simply epic -- Would I want to give that up? To which I have two answers:

1. I think the match-up would have happened anyway. See above. On the basis of their first-round momentum last year, I'm giving the Warriors the benefit of the doubt that they could have gotten past the Rockets.

Some might think it's a stretch that they'd get past Detroit in the second round, but bear in mind that the Warriors ran the Pistons out of the gym in two meetings last year. And if Chris Webber looked slow against the Cavs, can you imagine what he would've looked like on the floor with Golden State? (Well, actually that's not too hard ...)

2. This system would make these kind of first-round match-ups more likely, not less: The Warriors -- the best story of last year's playoffs -- were an 8-seed and could have easily missed out on the playoffs entirely. How many times have we missed the chance to see similar teams rise to the post-season occasion because they were on the wrong side of the country?