When the NBA and NHL suspended play nearly three months ago, they both said that they were committed not just to finishing the season, but crowning legitimate champions. At the time, we didn't know what that meant other than that they would do everything possible to come back and play as many games a possible before a full playoffs. Now that they've both announced their return to play plans, we can see how serious they were about that commitment.
The Stanley Cup has always been considered the hardest trophy in sports to win. A hot goalie or an injured star or simply a bad matchup can derail Cup hopes of even the best teams. Lower-seeded teams pulling off first-round upsets isn't just far more common, it's actually somewhat expected. In other words, a lot needs to go your way in order to win 16 games in two months and be rewarded with the greatest prize in sports.
Bringing all 31 teams back to finish the regular season before starting the playoffs would've been ideal, but as time wore on without the season resuming, it became clear that wasn't feasible. Having teams that out of it come back for the sake of coming back didn't make much sense. Going right to the playoffs without giving those teams within striking distance of eight-place wouldn't have worked, either. So, their 24-team solution was a reasonable compromise.
While the players wanted some sort of regular season so that they didn't have to go right into the playoffs after four months off, that will not be the case. The 5-12 seeds will go right to best-of-five series that will determine the final four playoff teams in each conference, where they'll join the 1-4 seeds. And instead of sitting around for that week, the top four teams will play a round robin to determine their seeds.
Most importantly, the NHL is dropping their dumb division-based bracket for conference-based seeding. (Psst, this is they way you should be doing.) Even if it's just for this year and even if it's just because of the circumstances, I'll take it. Pretty much everybody other than the executives in the NHL offices agree that this is the preferable format anyway, so hopefully it results in that much-needed change.
Anyway, they didn't initially say what the format would be after that play-in round other than that the conference finals and Stanley Cup Final would both be best-of-seven. The players were going to need to sign off on any format regardless, so it was smart to wait until there was an agreement before announcing the decision. And the decision they came to made hockey fans everywhere smile. Four best-of-sevens. In other words, a full playoffs.
That shows you how important it was to the players that the integrity of the playoffs be maintained. The Stanley Cup Playoffs can be a grind. That's part of what makes the reward so satisfying. The players are willing to put themselves through all that at a time when they would normally be getting ready for next season...when they face serious health risks due to the pandemic. But anything less than that grind would feel watered down. And that's the last thing they want. You get your name on the Cup, you want to feel like you earned it.
In fact, it might end up being harder to earn it this year than ever before. Because of that extra play-in round, 16 of the 24 teams are looking at having to win 19 games in order to hoist the Cup. If every series goes the distance, they could end up as many as 33 games. That's a lot of hockey in the roughly 10 weeks this will all take!
A first-round upset or two is still possible, but not as many as would've happened had they decided to go best-of-five. And as the playoffs progress, the 1-4 seeds will end up having an even bigger advantage. Yes, the three games that they play will still matter, but they won't have nearly the same intensity as the first round series. And any lower seed that advances will have that many more games in their legs. Even if they have a hot goalie, that could make a big difference the deeper they go, especially against more-rested opponents.
Things in the NBA were a little more complicated since they had roughly a quarter of the season left. But I think their solution was fair, too. Give the teams with a reasonable chance of making the playoffs that opportunity. For the teams that were out of it, don't bother putting them through a month-long training camp just to play meaningless games. They settled on six games. If you're within six games of the playoffs, you get to come to Orlando. If you're not, your season is over (for all intents and purposes, it already was anyway).
And Thank God they decided not to do that stupid play-in tournament. The last thing the NBA needs is more mediocre 38-44 teams making the playoffs! Anyway, they're still doing it, but in a way that makes sense and is fair. The 9-seed has to beat the 8-seed twice, while the 8-seed only has to win one of the two games. In a shortened season, that's a reasonable solution. (And it's beyond unnecessary in a full season when the only purpose of it seems to be letting more teams say "we made the playoffs!")
Playing eight regular season games before the playoffs begin seems like a lot, but that seems to have been one of the union's conditions. I guess my only problem with it is that they'll all play eight games, but still won't finish with the same number, so they'll use winning percentage to break ties. Why not just determine the number of games you want every team to finish with and get them all to that number? (Everybody is in the 64-66 range right now, so they easily could've set it at 72.)
Upsets are far more uncommon the NBA playoffs. They're not impossible, but in basketball especially, the better team will establish itself over the course of a seven-game series. So there's no doubt that whoever wins the NBA title will be just as legitimate as the Stanley Cup champion. And with the eight "seeding games" before they start the playoffs, followed by the full 16-team tournament, the players will all be in game shape, so it won't be a case of the best-conditioned team winning.
Neither of these scenarios is perfect. But no solution was going to be. And this was possibly the best-case scenario for each league, if not for those also-rans who abruptly saw their seasons end. But, they were going to be playing in empty arenas regardless, so it made sense to limit the restart to just the teams that are actually relevant. Having them play in their home arenas wouldn't have made any sense either, since travel would've been an unnecessary added consideration.
So instead, the NBA will bring 22 teams to Orlando and the NHL will bring 24 teams to two "hub" cities for summer tournaments. Those playoffs are supposed to be going on right now, so it'll be an adjustment for everybody. The fans aren't used to watching hockey or basketball at this time of the year, and the players are used to gearing up for training camp, not playing the highest-intensity games of all.
Next season will obviously be impacted, too. They both usually start the regular season in October, which obviously can't happen if they haven't finished this season yet. All indications are that the offseason will be very short and they'll just turn right around and start next year in December. So, after a four-month break, it's gonna be a lot of hockey and basketball for the rest of 2020 and into 2021. Hopefully.
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