What do divisions mean in nba

View all NBA Sites. More Atlantic News ». More FS Atlantic News ». View all Atlantic Sites. More Central News ». More FS Central News ». View all Central Sites. More Southeast News ». More FS Southeast News ». View all Southeast Sites. More Northwest News ». More FS Northwest News ». To be clear, a division winner isn't even guaranteed a playoff spot at all anymore. It's unlikely that a division winner would finish outside of the top-eight conference records, but it's possible now, and given how terrible the Atlantic division has been over the last few years, it's definitely on the table at least.

This is good news for those teams that play in tough divisions like the Central or Southwest, and a fair adjustment. If you can't make a top-eight record, you don't deserve a playoff spot, period. This still doesn't solve the competitive imbalance between the conferences. The competition committee was unsure about the travel problems related to eliminating conferences altogether, Adam Silver said earlier this year, and you can bet resistance to changing the format came from Eastern Conference owners who refuse to allow a scenario that significantly dampens their chances of making the playoffs.

The Warriors and Grizzlies battled in the second round this year. The Warriors faced the Pelicans, in New Orelans, in the first round. You're going to have a significant amount of travel anyway. Things have changed a lot since these rules were first put in place when players were flying commercial and didn't have hyperbaric chambers onboard.

It's going to be a hard sell, but while the division change is great, the league still needs to eliminate conferences and just take the best 16 teams to the postseason.

The tiebreaker problem is still in play. Everyone was focused on the advantage of teams getting a top-four seed, despite the fact that it didn't guarantee them home-court advantage, so this seems like a big win. One problem: they didn't really fix the tiebreaker issue. The rule changes did adjust tiebreakers to make head-to-head record the No. However, the second tiebreaker remains division title. And that's a problem, especially after last year.

The teams in each conference are ranked by their win-loss record from the regular season. The six teams with the most wins from each conference progress immediately to the playoffs. The seventh to 10th teams in each conference then play for the remaining playoff spots in a play-in tournament. The 30 teams are divided into two conferences East and West with 15 teams in each.

Each of those conferences is divided into three Divisions of 5 teams. Divisions and conferences are roughly determined by geography, placing nearby teams in the same Division. In most North American sports, a division title means something — for example, in the NFL it guarantees a home playoff game, in MLB it guarantees entry straight into the Divisional playoffs. All the teams play 82 games in the regular season. An athletic conference is a collection of sports teams, playing competitively against each other at the professional, collegiate, or high school level.

In many cases conferences are subdivided into smaller divisions, with the best teams competing at successively higher levels. Divisions DO matter. Divisions do matter. It is just a tick mark the good teams check off. That is absolutely true. The division championship in felt like a foregone conclusion just as it did in It meant nothing — just a note at the end of a story or game recap. On the way up though, these milestones are incredibly meaningful. They are a tangible result that legitimizes the rise to the top.

It is something to celebrate in a sports culture that often gives fans very little to celebrate. When a team is at or close to the very top of the mountain, only one goal is worth celebrating. The division championship then is something like the team in sixth place of the Premier League in English soccer qualifying for Europa League not even Champions League!

Or the team that avoids relegation. It is not the main goal, but it is something nice to hold onto. Something tangible to point to as a sign of better things to come. It is that important stepping stone for any franchise looking to compete for bigger prizes. Division championships come with no actual reward. But there is a psychological one. Particularly for young teams. For the teams not competing for championships, division titles remain a goal worth achieving and striving for.

It is something a good team should accomplish anyway. Even if they no longer come with banners or much fanfare anymore, there still feels like there should be value for division titles.