edabomb
First Grade
- Messages
- 7,208
So with the Lakers miles off the 8th seed and just an abysmal team I hope the media starts to shine a torch on the play in series. The play in was a novelty during the bubble, now it's just a cynical cash grab. I can't think of one positive thing it brings into the league, I really don't see it being any great deterrent to tanking. You could say teams 9 and 10 are motivated by that playoff money, but in most seasons they'd be motivated up to mid-March anyway if the financials were a factor. You can't start tanking in mid-March.
Some of the negatives I have are:
- it's a waste of time. As the Lakers show, teams in 9th or 10th are generally pretty horrible and absolute cannon fodder for the 1st and 2nd seeds if they get through the play in. You've had 82 games to win the right to a playoff spot.
- we've already increased the first round to 7 games to reduce the chance of a first round upset. Now we also want to add in a bunch of games for the 7th or 8th seed at the end of a long season to burn them out even further before they take on the 1st or 2nd seed. Round 1 upsets are dead.
- A team like Minnesota in the 7th seed that are 12 games above the 9th seed shouldn't have to prove they belong in the playoffs. How much does that devalue and trivialise the regular season.
Some of the negatives I have are:
- it's a waste of time. As the Lakers show, teams in 9th or 10th are generally pretty horrible and absolute cannon fodder for the 1st and 2nd seeds if they get through the play in. You've had 82 games to win the right to a playoff spot.
- we've already increased the first round to 7 games to reduce the chance of a first round upset. Now we also want to add in a bunch of games for the 7th or 8th seed at the end of a long season to burn them out even further before they take on the 1st or 2nd seed. Round 1 upsets are dead.
- A team like Minnesota in the 7th seed that are 12 games above the 9th seed shouldn't have to prove they belong in the playoffs. How much does that devalue and trivialise the regular season.