It’d been rumored to happen for a while now, but on Tuesday the NBA officially announced that division winners will no longer be guaranteed a top four–or any–playoff seeding. The postseason matchups for each conference (which will sadly still exist for the foreseeable future) are now based purely on regular season record. Seeing as this is an A Royal Pain article the question becomes obvious–how will this rule change affect the Sacramento Kings?
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To tell that we first need to figure out how the change will affect the entire NBA. What this rule change does is essentially make things more fair for teams. Being stuck in a tougher division or conference is still going to negatively impact some teams (namely the poor Mavericks…Dallas needs to play a ton of games against the Rockets, Spurs, Grizzlies and Pelicans this season).
But now surviving a difficult division and winning more games than a team in a weaker one will mean that the better team gets the better seed, which is fair and how it should be.
An example–the Thunder and Jazz get to meet the Trail Blazers, Nuggets and Timberwolves often due to their division. Let’s say due to injuries to both teams (Dante Exum for the Jazz, multiple players have injury concerns on the Thunder) cause them to both win less than 50 games.
If the Western Conference is around as tough as it was last season, somewhere around five teams will record over 50 wins between the other two Western divisions. Last season, either the Jazz or Thunder were guaranteed the fourth seed based on the division rule–whoever won more games between them would have a higher seed than two teams that had a better record.
That just felt stupid, so props to Adam Silver for getting that rule changed. Hopefully soon conferences are thrown out too. But anyway, let’s finally get to how the Sacramento Kings will be impacted by this new system.
It probably won’t make a huge difference for Sacramento, except if those two teams from the Northwest Division do struggle mightily this season. If the Kings play outstanding and OKC and Utah both end with worse records DeMarcus Cousins and company will get a playoff spot and both Northwest teams could miss out.
I don’t honestly see that happening but it’s important to note this could have several important impacts on seeding in the future. The balance of power shifts fast in the NBA, and Kevin Durant leaving the Thunder in free agency next offseason could make the Northwest the obviously weakest division in the West.
That would result in no teams from that division making the playoffs, which means there is an extra slot for another team from the Pacific or Southwest division team that deserves it. What this rule change does is essentially ensuring the best eight teams from each conference make the postseason–if the Sacramento Kings are deserving, they get a spot.
This doesn’t really “help” any one team more than another–it just ensures the best teams will go to the playoffs. Let’s all hope that the Kings count themselves among that group sooner rather than later, to take advantage of this smart rule change.
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