The Ringer NBA Show - Will the NBA Go to a Group Stage Format for Its Playoffs? | The Mismatch

Episode Date: May 26, 2020

As the NBA nears its return, we explore the benefits and drawbacks of adopting a World Cup–style group stage for the 2020 playoffs. Could this draw new fans? Could it be a precursor to future midseason tournaments or even playoffs? Does this shift the competitive balance in any way?  Hosts: Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. This week, the Ringer is launching a new podcast feed called BoomBust. It's a new hub for narrative podcasts documenting the rise and fall of companies, celebrities, and trends. Season one, hosted by our own Alyssa Boresnack, takes you through this spectacular journey of HQ trivia. The once $100 million industry-altering company turned disaster. Alyssa interviewed dozens of former employees, investors, journalists, and fans bringing you the behind. behind-the-scenes story of how HQ crumbled from within.

Subscribe to Boom-Bust HQ trivia and check out the first two episodes out now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to The Ringer MBA show. I'm Chris Vernon. And join me as he does every Tuesday from the ringer.com is Kevin O'Connor, A.K. Kevin O'Bomber, a.k. Kevin O'C. Kevin O'Cliamor,

Kevin O'Clymater, Kevin O'Candeeland, Kevin O'Blessarian, Kevin. Verno. How are you doing today, buddy? I am on cloud nine, Kevin. Not only did we have a great Memorial Day weekend, but for those of you that are listeners to the mismatch, on Friday, we had a question that came in and it was asking about Luca Donchich and how good he could be.

And I said, Kevin, at one point on this very podcast, you said that he could be a all-time great, a top 10 player. And you said, no, I didn't. And we got in an argument about it. I said, I'm finding this audio. Well, I didn't have to find the audio because one of my Instagram followers, Jack Springer, went and found the audio. Jack recognizes that I have the memory of an elephant. You could call me Babar, if you will.

I knew this was said at some point. And in fact, on a podcast that we did on midseason overreactions, Kevin O'Connor, you said the following on this. Very podcast. Luca Donchurch has a chance to be on the NBA's Mount Rushmore by the time his career is over. Mount Rushmore, you can argue the four guys on there. I would say in no order. It's LeBron, Michael Jordan, Kareem, and Bill Russell. Those four are probably the four greatest players of all time, in my opinion.

I think by the time Lucas' career is over, there's a chance. We had Jerry West allude to this the other day saying that Luca will be better than Dirk Novitsky. Oh my goodness. I got to say real quick, guys, that was January 7th of 2020. So it wasn't even last year. It wasn't even thinking as far back. Kev, you mentioned on the pod that you thought that there was something from before the season.

Here's what you said it was actually one week into the season when we were doing one week overreactions. Okay. My number four, I got Luca Donchrich. I'm going to quote Jason Gallagher here at the ringer. just when I talk about Luca here. Jason tweeted this yesterday. He said, it's just one game. So I don't want to overreact.

But sophomore year, Luca Donchich looks good enough to bring peace and healing to this broken world of ours and possibly redeem all of mankind. Oh, Lord. That's what I would say. That is an overreaction.

So NBA's Mount Rushmore and peace and healing and prosperity to humankind. Yeah, still we've got a global pandemic. Clearly, Luca can't save the world right now. But, you know, I was wrong, clearly. I don't have a great memory. I admit that. I've long known that and understood that.

But I will say this. I said that during an overreactions pod, days after Jerry West said he'll be better than Dirk. Wow. So that was part of the reason for saying that. It was an overreaction. However, as I said on Friday's pod, what I did say before anybody else was really talking about it was that Loco is a top 10 player today.

And that was something that on November 9th or whatever the date was when I first said that was something people said, really, you're overreacting to that. That was not an overreaction. Well, I want to apologize to because I said top 10. You said Mount Rushmore, which is I undersold. you had one of the best four players to ever play basketball. Oh my God. Yeah.

I mean, even as an overreaction, that was a bit much. And as I said, I'm sorry, Chris. I forgot. I made a mistake. So good.

Just ride with it. Now, this is what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to say, damn right? I said it. We're kicking Bill Russell off of Mount Rushmore. I mean, let's be honest, those players in the 50s and the 60s, who knows how they perform today.

But that's a totally different conversation for different day. There's so much to talk about today. Okay. Well, let's, okay, so when we go through what happened over the weekend, on Friday, there was a report that came out from Sean Sharania, from the athletic, saying that the GMs had all been sent a survey. And so they were going to get their input. Now, obviously, the NBA has to negotiate with Disney World. The NBA has to negotiate with its own players union. The NBA has to negotiate with ESPN.

And so it's not like the GMs are going to swing this all that much. But it is a good opportunity to check the temperature of, hey, what do teams around the league think about different formats and a way that we could come back? I will say off the back, your article this morning, I'm not saying this just because we had that first segment, your article this morning is incredible because I found it to be insanely persuasive. I think, all right, let's go through the different formats.

We'll start with what the GMs had to answer and we'll act as GMs. So Shams wrote this. According to multiple sources, the NBA led by Silver also held a conference call with GMs on Thursday in which several notable topics were discussed. A two-step approach to the start of games, meaning a two-week training camp in the team's market,

two-week quarantine training camp in the playing location. It also discussed, they also discussed players being resistant to the full naval swab coronavirus test. That was a portion of it. And then also they discussed once in the bubble site that teams could share support services. So doctor, security personnel, to lessen the number of people,

involved. Any thoughts on any of those first three things that they kind of covered? All feels reasonable and the type of thing we could expect moving forward. I think so too. Season formats under consideration. And you wrote a lot about these in depth today. So you've got advanced directly to the playoffs. That's one. And you would just have all the 16 teams. The standings based on March 12th and 16 teams would go. You have a playoffs plus option, which would expand the number of teams with the opportunity to play, they're holding a play in tournament or replacing the first round of the playoffs with a group

stage. And then if there is a playoffs plus how many teams should return to play, 18, 20, 22, 24, resuming a regular season with all 30 teams, resuming a regular season with all 30 teams plus the play in, and then the playoffs plus play in format. So those were kind of the different ones that were discussed. Now, you wrote about the group stage. And it feels like to me, Kev, when they're talking about getting this season back underway, it feels like there's no chance. We're going to have all 30 teams and we're going to complete this regular season.

Like I saw a wind horse talking about this on ESPN this weekend. Like that, the chances of that are very, very dim. So we are talking about less than 30 teams. Absolutely that this is most likely that in some way you go straight to some. some sort of playoff format. You also had Damien Lillard today tell Chris Haynes of Yahoo that if the Blazers have to play again and that they don't have a shot to get into the postseason, he's going to be sitting right on the bench. And that is a belief, you know, a feeling that a lot of players on non-playoff teams have. Like, is it worth it to go through three or four weeks of training

camp and quarantine and preparation just to play, you know, with no shot of the postseason? Because in that proposal, Shams mentioned that MBA sent to GMs was. if the regular season were resumed, not to play 82 games, but 72 games or 76 games, which is around six extra games for a team or 10 extra teams for a team. That's not enough for the Blazers or the pelicans or the spurs to make up ground on the Grizzlies for the eight seed in the Western Conference. It's pointless for the players to play at that point other than making up a little bit of salary. So in all likelihood, the NBA will go straight to the playoffs in some format.

So it's about which one would it be? Okay. So you have, the easiest is clearly just take the 16 teams, the top eight in the West, top eight in the east, and then go play it out. But you outlined an entire scenario today about group stages, and this would include 20 teams being involved. So you would then have two thirds of the league is involved in this in some way, shape or form.

And much like the World Cup, and you even outlined all the way down to the random draws and that the best teams would be then able to pick their group, that they would be in as to not be overly concerned with a group of death or something like that. So basically you would have five different, or I'm sorry, four different, right? Five team pods. Basically, you would take the top 20 teams with the top 20 records and you would place those teams into tiers or pots, which is something that is done in the World Cup. And that would be five tiers of four teams each.

So the top four would be bucks, Lakers, Raptors, Clippers, and so on and so forth, from top to the bottom, 20 of the standings. And from there, you could do one of two things, or maybe a third or fourth, but the two main ones are you could randomly draw one team from each tier into a group. and that is to best assure competitive balance within each group and minimize the chance that there's one way overpower group

in which a major contender is getting eliminated or because these top teams, bucks, Lakers, Raptors, Clippers all had the one and two seeds at the time the season ended, you could have them draft from these other tiers and have them selected their opponents

and you know, there's issues with that but it's just another idea out there. And then once, once the groups are determined, from there, each team would play the other teams in their group twice. So every team of the 20 would play eight games each, which would make 80 total games being played during this group stage. And then the top two teams, after that's over, from each group would move on to the second round of the playoffs with a traditional classic seven game series resuming

at that point. And in the event of a tie, my understanding is that the number one tie breaker would be best regular season record. So there's inherently an advantage for teams that were better in the regular season. If like, let's say the bucks were in the same tier as the Kings and both of them go four and four, the bucks would therefore move on into the playoffs because of better regular season record. And of course, you go to standard tiebreakers with, you know, best head to head win percentage and all that if regular season record were tied.

But overall, Chris, I mean, I'm happy that you. are into the idea of it because, you know. This is paradise. This is paradise for a basketball thing. You're talking about eight games a day. You're talking about, and you even mentioned the sports betting angle or sports. Some amount of games a day.

Like whatever it is. Like it would be like two and a half weeks to three weeks of just basketball every day. And every game matters. And it would be like having league pass for everybody. And you know, and the thing is, and here's the big thing to me. Look, you and I have went back and forth.

about the playing postseason tournament in which teams would compete for the seven and eight seeds. And I'm into that in a normal year. But this year, I'm not. And the number one reason is because of the fact that when you talk about giving these teams a chance to get into the postseason, because look, Memphis had the toughest remaining schedule in the league. That's just the facts here. New Orleans had the easiest. There is a chance the pelicans would have caught the Grizzlies and grabbed the eight seed. However, however, there's also a chance that the clippers,

in the two seed, who were only four games ahead of the six seed, could have slipped down too. There could have been shuffling within the Eastern and Western Conference standings that a playing tournament doesn't account for. That's what a group stage does. A group stage accounts for the shuffling that could have occurred from the number one seat, well, not from the number one, but from the number two seed all the way down to the number 10 and number 11 seed. And it adds more games in the process which can help make up for what you're losing

by canceling the regular season. Overall, I look at this and when I hadn't heard about this before Friday, but as soon as I heard of this, I was like, this is the one. And in my conversations, it's the one, it's the one. And a lot of people in the NBA think it's the one too. But a lot of people also are like, is this too big of a change? I don't think so. I think it's doable.

It's doing it. What are we talking about? Look, look, our whole lives have changed. Everything has changed. If there's ever a time to do something like this, This is the time. And if you want to get, this is something that would get even the casual fan to be tuning in and to care about and to watch. And I think it could be the absolute best thing that ever happened to the NBA.

And it may be something that you would look at going forward, you know, after this season. Because, A, you have more teams involved, right? So who cares? Now you know there's going to be 20 teams involved. You have more teams caring about. being able to get into this tournament, right? There's going to be 10 teams that aren't there. But two-thirds of your league is going to be able to get involved in this postseason,

much like you were talking about soccer, right, and the way it works, where it's even the team that is in 21st, they're still trying like hell, because they want to be part of this thing to give themselves a chance. And so when you are looking for teams, not just tanking games at the end of the season for the sake of the lottery. You have that in consideration. The other thing, more importantly, the matchups. You referenced last season, and you talked about how there was only like one game six,

and you had a couple of sweeps. And then you even mentioned that this year, okay, we come back. Let's be fair. You and I are hardcore, so we're watching everything. Who the hell is watching Buck's Magic? I mean, come on. Like, unless you're a hardcore NBA fan, but in your stated, you know, Say the Bucks are in a pod and they've got the magic,

or I'm sorry, the Mavericks are in their pod or the Grizzlies are in their pod because there's just going to be a little bit weaker, but you've got somebody from each tier and all of a sudden the Bucks are in the same tier as the Denver Nuggets. Now all of a sudden you're watching, you know, Bucks Nuggets. You're getting all these matchups that you would never get otherwise. And if I'm not mistaken, you're not. not leaving anybody out.

Like I get the whole Eastern Conference might not be happy with this, but the magic would still make this thing, right? So you're not the only, it would just be basically those extra four teams. In the West. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And by the way, like one of the things that I've heard is that Eastern Conference teams

have already sort of pushed back about the idea of a group stage without conferences or the idea of a 16 team playoff without conferences as well. And one of the reasons why it would be because they don't. don't want to give up leverage when it comes to future discussions about getting rid of conferences or receding in the postseason. I don't think that has anything to do with what is decided this year. No. I think what has decided this year is totally separate from what happens in the future. It could serve as an example for what is best, but when you look at the Eastern Conference playoff teams versus the Western Conference playoff teams, there's not a dramatic difference between

the top teams or the middle tier teams and the bottom tier teams that are in the postseason. And it's just not. I mean, you could say the Blazers and the Kings and the Spurs and the Blazers are better than the magic. But it's not such a dramatic difference that the magic suddenly have a less chance now. They're screwed going against the bucks, whether it's one versus eight in the east or one versus 16 conference list. I mean, it's just the reality of it. As you said, Chris, who's going to watch that if you're a casual fan? You and I will because we're hardcore NBA fans because of it's our job, because it's something we choose and want to do.

But for casual fans, look, the NBA needs to think about casual fans here and drawing them in. Ratings are going to be high no matter what. The match two this weekend set records, the last dance, set documentary records for ESPN, NASCAR ratings are up. Sports ratings are going to be up. But if you want to make them go boom, do you want to have four straight games, maybe five, if you're lucky, of Buck's Magic? or do you want to have a situation in which you have bucks facing the rockets one night and then two nights later they're facing Damian Lillard and the Blazards and then another night you have the Lakers hosting the Pelicans and Zion

and then another then a couple nights later they're facing Luca and the Mavericks. If you're the NBA, what do you want here? What is going to draw more eyeballs? What is going to generate more interest for casual fans, for people who want to gamble. It's clearly the group stage, far more than the 1 to 16 playoff

without conferences, far more than the stared at 1 to 8. And as you said, Chris, this is a great point. Because this year is so weird for all of us, we're all so used to things changing. I mean, like, Jeff Proops with survivors

streaming from his house for the finale, Ryan Seacrest and all the American Idol contestants streaming from their own homes, whether it's entertainment TV, or whether it's sports with Tom Brady and Pace, Manning and Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson all miced up. We're used to weird stuff.

And if the NBA wants to take any opportunity to try something new and innovative, that could be a big hit, it's right now. And that's the group stage. And here's the big thing, Kev. There are scenarios in which I could see somebody saying, this is not fair, right? This is not fair in terms of bringing back 16 teams or trying to play in for those last couple of seats, which I have said. That's wildly unfair, considering you're already 65 games in, right? And like somebody having to win, you know, a couple of games when they were all at least back three and a half games from the Grizzlies or they were back in the other conference. That's not, that's not right.

But who would this possible? I was trying to think, who is this unfair to? So let's say, okay, look, we ain't bringing back everybody, okay? So now we're just deciding, like if I'm, if I'm trying to convince my, my owners, my board of governors, we're not bringing everybody back. Okay. So I get if the Easter conference wants to be a little upset because they aren't getting the, they aren't getting extra teams in the, in the top 20. Sorry, Washington. You were five and a half back.

Sorry. I mean, it's just, it's just they weren't top 20. I'm with you. You could do top 22 or top 24, but then you're talking about buys. And then you're having Washington and these other teams get back. I don't see the reason for them to train for four weeks in quarantine and then go into that tournament. It just doesn't make as much sense to me as 20 does. All right.

So here's what I would say. All right. So the top 16 are in. And then the four teams, those end up being Western Conference teams by virtue of record. Okay. So if I'm talking to my board of governors and I'm saying, look, guys, we're not bringing back 30. We're either bringing back 16 or we're going to try this group thing. look either way you're getting eight teams in either way so you can fight this to not have four more

Western conference teams in the playoffs but you're not if we do it this way if we do it the other way you're not getting anybody else in anyway so you're only getting eight teams either way we do it so if you want to stop this from happening because you don't want these four Western teams to be able to have a chance, then so be it and we'll just do the 16. But I don't know, man, if it was a different year, if the standings look differently, I mean, you also have, you got two-thirds of the league. You know, this is why this is the other thing that I was thinking about that is smart. Two-thirds of the league is going to say yes, because nobody feels like they're getting screwed.

I don't think, unless possibly like maybe, I don't know, Milwaukee or one of the Easter conference teams sits there and things. Milwaukee would feel that way. Milwaukee naturally, they have a matchup right now against Orlando. Of course they want to face Orlando. No kidding, of course. And it's easier to get out of the east than it is having to play against everybody. But that's why with the group stage, they're still the favorite.

I mean, if you, if you, I talked to one guy who ran the numbers and he said that the odds of Milwaukee getting out of group stage are only significantly less than it would be under a normal one to eight series if you look at historical numbers. And from Milwaukee, I would say to them, what are the potential gains here of having 80 guaranteed must-win games from 20 teams total versus regular season in which you would have teams come back to compete for 72 or 76 games, which would increase risk. You would have players sitting, the perception of what the league would look like in Disney World. Is it worth it to have only go straight to the postseason and have only an average of 44 games being played in the first round of the

playoffs, I think the gains that come from a group stage are more than the risks. The risks of having 30 teams means you have 30 teams, many of which don't want to be there, makes them more of a risk naturally for some type of coronavirus outbreak happening within there. And that topples the whole operation. If you do 20 teams, that's a compromise somewhere in the middle where it is slightly more teams than having 16 go to the postseason, slightly more, but it is teams that are locked in that are in playoff mode, that are focused on the task at hand, and then have something to actually play for. And I look at that. If I'm Milwaukee, if I'm the Lakers, if I'm these teams of the one season, I'm like, you know what, we might have a slightly lesser

chance of advancing to the second round, but we're still pretty damn good. And overall, this is something that could be great for the league and for us overall. Not to mention, as I said, they would have inherent advantage because tiebreaker could be best record in the regular season. They would trump anybody else if there were a tie in the group stage standings. And you could also give them some type of edge when it comes to choosing teams for their group. I don't know if that would happen. My guess would be it would be a random draw. However, if you want to talk about drawing up interest, you know, whether it's a random draw or whether it's a random draw or whether teams drafting their own opponents, that is going to be something that could be aired on television

that could be drum up interest, that could get people really plugged into the NBA more than ever before. You know, because even for hardcore fans, the traditional playoffs can be a bit stale in the first round. This is something that there's no chance. Not a single day wouldn't have one or two or three games that you've got to be at your TV to watch live. Oh, being like the World Cup, that's how I think of it in that sense. I'm not, I'm not somebody that watch a soccer throughout the year. I don't watch the Champions League. I mean, I'll watch a Premier League here and there if it's on TV and I see, like,

you know, somebody that I'm aware of is playing or whatnot. But I'm not some huge soccer fan. I watch all of the World Cup, all of it. I have it on all day. All day along. I'm not a soccer guy. I watch the World Cup every time it's on. I watch all of these countries, all of these players.

I end up listening to a, uh, you know, the Men and Blazers podcast throughout the World Cup. Like, I'm serious. Like, and this has been like the last eight years. Every time it comes around, I find myself just deep diving into it. And then I watch these games and I want to hear about these games and I want to hear about these players. And I love those guys, right? So I'll listen to their podcast and I'll listen to other World Cup podcast.

And like, I immersed myself in it. And I think to myself, geez, man, could you imagine? somebody that doesn't love the NBA, but this is going on all day long and they're showing the bracket and they're showing the standings. And here's one other thing, because I don't want to forget about this,

that you mentioned in passing in the article, but I thought very, very fascinating. So one of the things you mentioned was with the, I was thinking about this through the prism of the TV stuff. You, in this format, you guarantee everybody eight games, okay? everybody gets eight games out of this format. That would, in most cases, the contracts for those RSNs, those regional sports networks, are 70 games.

You would theoretically, if you could broadcast those on your regional channel and obviously they'll be on national TV. But you have the right, much like you do in the playoffs at the very beginning, to show those as a local broadcast. And so if you got those first eight games, you could also fulfill that RSN contract in virtually every single market by having those eight games just be available for people to broadcast locally. So now you've killed two birds with one stone.

Whereas we've always kind of thought if you don't have the regular season, you're not going to be able to, you're not going to be able to make that contract right. But this is a way you could. make that contract right. And obviously, for the RSNs, it's a bonanza, right? Because they get their local broadcasters and their local shows to be able to do these as broadcast.

That's the other thing. And that's a lot of money, you know? Sure. And like, that's one of the big things here is if you have 20 teams play eight games apiece, that's 80 games total. And in a traditional first round of the playoffs, going back to the, first year, it moved from five games to seven games back in 03. The average amount of games played in the first round is 44, a maximum of 56. And so you're nearly doubling that for the

first round and you might be very well doubling or tripling the amount of interests in these games as well because of the nature of the group stage round robin format with teams playing each other, with every game mattering. Orlando being in there, you know, kings, you know, spurs, some of these teams that are on the fringes that are on the bubble, they probably won't advance. They probably won't. Maybe not. There's a chance, though, because you have eight games to play, maybe you catch a hot streak,

and you never know, man. And by the way, even if you don't, it's a, this is what Adam Silver has been going for with a mid-season tournament and with a playoff playing tournament, is giving teams a chance to feel like they have something to win. Because even if you, we've talked a lot, Chris, about how even if you don't win the finals, you can still have great memories along the way. It's not just about the trophy. It's about the journey here.

And for Orlando or any of these fan bases that might lose, if you win a game versus the bucks in the group stage, a summer in which we're all going through this coronavirus pandemic and all of our lives are changing, that is something that as a fan of the game, if you're watching with your loved ones or watching with your friends, that's something that you're going to remember for a long time. And I would hope that the league, and I believe they are, because they put it in the freaking survey. And I've heard there is support within league office.

But I hope this week when it comes to the meetings that they're going to have, the advisory finance committee is meeting on Wednesday. The board of governors are meeting on Friday. I hope Adam Silver goes into those meetings and makes a strong case for this. Because as much as I love the idea of a 16 playoff format without conferences, this year just doesn't do it for me for the reasons we saved earlier, but this does, man. And I think it's a big, it's a bit of a risk, but it's not a significant risk. And it's something that the upside here is significant and beyond what I expected with the idea of experimenting this summer. And it's just,

it just clicks for me, man. And as it does, the response to my tweet so far today, including your response here, Chris, a lot of people like this idea. A lot of people in the league do too. You even tried to present, you know, just because you do in an article, you even tried to present like concerns. Yeah, concerns against it or downsides. I see no downside. I'm not kidding. Like every one of those, I'm like, yeah, whatever. Like, what are your options?

Like your option is, so you're an Easter Commerce team, okay, your option is you still get your eight teams. If you are, and like I talked about, if you've got 20, you got two thirds of the league that's happy with this. You've got two-thirds of the league that's able to make right, do right by their RSN contracts. And so they can all broadcast these 20, 20 of 30 are going to be able to make this right. And if we're saying off the bat, look, guys, regular seasons, we're not finishing it. 30 teams, that's off the table. We're only discussing what is the best way to do this for the health of the league and for generating money and maybe something that can, you know, change our league forever going forward.

I have, look. And by the way, also providing for fans a new, unique experience just to give fans something to latch onto and something to watch and to love. We've talked about that before. It's not all about the money here. It's about giving something to fans that's a new, innovative experience. What is the league doing if they're not trying to make the product better? What is it doing?

It's doing a disservice to its hardcore fans and it's doing a disservice to casual fans who otherwise would become NBA fans if they have something to latch on to. This is something that's great for teams, for players, for coaches, for the league office, for business interests, and for fans.

It's great for everybody. Well, and here's the thing. It's a weird year. It's a weird season. Might as well try it. And maybe this can be something, maybe this isn't your format that you end your season with from now on, but it is the format for something you do in the middle of the season, right?

Because I understand, you can't be pulling this off, traveling all over the country with the group stages and whatever. You're not going to, for the rest of time, I get it. You're not going to be doing this at neutral sites. But for this one off year, if you want to try this and you say, and this is going to be part of our format when we try this mid-season turn, tournament, you know, in years to come, which can be on neutral sites. It could be.

Maybe in future years it's 10 teams instead of 20. And maybe it's the top four advance to a knockout round where it's, you know, one game and you're out. And it's a two-week process. You know, maybe that's what it is in the future. And this is a way to experiment. Because here's the other thing, Kev. Like, all right, so one of the things is, I get it.

like these teams make fortunes off of having their playoff revenue that come in. So we're not going to change the playoffs forever in terms of playing seven game series and having the home games and having home court advantage. But for this year, nothing is going to be like it is. Nothing. Like you're playing on a neutral and you're playing in a place without fans and you're playing your quarantine at frigging Disney World. Like nothing about this.

Like if you look at it like, Like asterisk or no asterisk, this season is never going to be like any other season anyway. So go with it. And like we're going to look back and we're not going to say, oh, you remember that unbelievable game. Like, you know, I thought about I saw over the weekend, it was the year anniversary of the Kauai shot bouncing around the rim and dropping it against Philly. And you've got that crowd reaction. You got the whole thing. And like, okay, none of that's happening.

Right. So we don't have that. Whatever are the replays, whatever we remember about this, it's not going to be the playoffs as we know it. If you want to get back to the playoffs as we know it next year, fine. But to do it this year, just for the sake of not changing, when you're already having to change literally everything else about the way this season ends, who cares?

And you might as well make two thirds of the teams happy, right? and you also I just refuse to believe there is a basketball fan that sits out there and doesn't like if I laid out all of the options who doesn't choose this I was trying to think about this

who yeah like can you can you think of I tried to think of my head like the guy that's like responding you know on his keyboard what is he well why wouldn't he want it maybe John Horst on his

burner account, GM of the Bucks. My best friend. You know? Please. My best friend, John. It was interesting. When I first heard this idea, like I said, my initial thought was, this is the one. And then I talked to people, I trust them the league like, hey, what do you think about

this? You know, people from teams. And a lot of people were like, do you want my opinion as a fan or do you want my opinion as an executive? And that question would come from people who are already in the postseason or from Eastern Conference team executives. But everybody from a fan perspective. is like, yeah, no kidding, this is the best choice here.

Putting on your executive hat, maybe it's a different conversation because of where your team is and the playoff seatings or what you're hopeful is, what your hopes are for the future changes to the league. You might not want conferences teams if you're in the Eastern Conference. But support from the league was far stronger than I anticipated when I first read about this idea in Shams's article. I mean, I was told that the league sent this to general managers like around midnight, Thursday night, before Friday morning. And when this became public through Shams's article on Friday, I had, like I said, I hadn't heard about it.

A lot of people in the league didn't expect Adam Silver to put this in there. I guess there's conversations, you know, rumblings that there was support for this, but they didn't expect Adam Silver to put something so extreme in there. in all likelihood the 16 team playoff format is safer as you said it's less of a risk but the the upside is just not there man i'm sorry if you do conference lists if you do a 16 team playoff without conferences you get the lakers nets first round two versus 15 no katy no kiree i'm sorry lakers fans are going to watch that net's fans are going to watch that lebron fans are going to watch that and that's a lot of people but it's not going to do things for the casual fan who want to watch healthy star players who want to watch

exciting games. But if you put the nets in there in a tournament against other teams, you only get them for two games. Not for four if you're a fan of another team. Just for two. More variety, more constant changes, more interesting matchups,

less dullness that a typical format provides in the early rounds, even for some fans who are hardcore like you and I. Well, and that would be look, I mean, you're not screwing anybody over. even what you were just saying, okay, so obviously if they would be playing the Nets,

Orlando does get screwed over. And you happen to be doing this whole damn thing at Disney World. So it's not great. You know what I mean? But look, you earned your spot into the playoffs. You still get to make it. I don't think that's right. Like I did like some of the matchups.

In the one, the 16? Yeah, I like some of the matchups. So without conferences, this is what it would be. It would be Buck's Magic, Heat Thunder. that's the top left corner of the bracket. Top right, Lakers Nets, Jazz Rockets. Bottom left,

Clippers Mavs, Celtic Sixers. Bottom right, Raptors, Grizzlies, Nuggets Pacers. I mean, as hard-go-fan, I'm into a lot of those matchups. Yeah. But I'll tell you what, bottom right sounds made for NBA TV to me. I'm sorry, casual fans,

are they tuning into Raptors Grizzlies? Are they tuning into Nuggets Pacers? I would hope so, but I don't think so if you look at history. Mark, return versus his former team, John Morant. Hey,

Chris, of course, of course. I'm with you. I know, I know, I know, but I'm just saying.

Oh, Nuggets Pacers is on, that's on true TV. Yeah, I mean, that's what I'm saying. Like, but if you have Nuggets Pacer's in a group stage format,

you get them twice. No, you get them twice. I'm well aware. You don't get it four times or five times or six times. And it drags along over two and a half, three weeks. And you're seeing everybody play other teams.

Matchups that you. would never see in that kind of a format. That's what I love. Which is dope, right? Oh, like some of the, imagine Damien Lured. Yeah. In the format that I outlined, this was randomly drawn.

I used Google's random number generator to do this. So these would be a theoretical groups of five teams each. You could have group one, bucks, jazz, Sixers, Grizzlies, Blazers. Group two, Lakers, Heat, Rockets, Magic Pelicans. Group three, Raptors, Celtics, Thunder, Mavericks, Spurs. Group four, Clippers, Nuggets, Pacers, Nets, Kings. Let's say that's what it ended up being from a random draw. For the Blazers, they would have an opportunity to play eight games as a team that's a little

bit healthier now with Yusuf Nerkage and Zach Collins back, Damien Lillard, hungry, ready to push this team into the post-season. But in order to do it, they have to get through three elite defenses, the Bucks, the Jazz, the Sixers with dramatically different styles on the defensive end of the floor from a strategic point of view, it would be just utterly fascinating to see these teams go game to game playing every other day, or whatever the schedule may be, making adjustments on the fly to these different types of opponents. You can say that about any single grouping here. Lakers having to face and contain James Hardin and Russell Westbrook one day,

and then having to go to face Miami Heat with their positionless, quirky style of defense, playing zone against them. I mean, it's endless, man. Imagine if this happened today with a drawing, and it was in three weeks, games we were going to start. We would have non-stop, non-stop discussion about the possibilities.

Whereas with the traditional format, it's really just a couple of series where you're like, yeah, that has a chance to go to seven. Hey, Chris, one second. I have to tell the listeners about today's sponsor. If you've been dealing with acne, redness, dark spots or wrinkles, finding treatment that works can be complicated. You need skin care that actually performs, but getting started can be overwhelming. Thankfully, there's a solution.

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Eligibility requirements and additional terms do apply. And now back to the mismatch. It's almost like I wish you would not have written this whole article and brought this up because now if we don't get it, I'm going to be disappointed. Right? Like I just want basketball to come back. Yeah. But I just want it. And obviously it is going to be coming back.

It's just a matter of how. But now that I know this is out there, to me, it feels like an absolute no-brainer. I do have one question, though. You wrote this whole article. It's very persuasive to me. You've got me totally on board. I did wonder though, even in your outline, and I know you're excited about this and you feel like this is the way to go, I feel like you did not, or I will just ask you, did you even consider the fact that under the plan that you outlined, you will not see Larry Nance play basketball until next season. And now that I have reminded you, do you think you're going to go back and write a different article?

I'll have to reconsider. It's next year. Under your format, I don't get to watch Larry Nance until next season. I'm pretty sure I'll be okay with it, but you have me second guessing. This whole 3,000 award article now, yeah. Well, all right, it sounds like from all the reports I've read this morning, it sounds like Friday is the big day of this week. That's the board of governor's meeting in which Adam Silver, I've told, will present

formal ideas to each team. And like I said earlier, I hope he goes into that room and makes a strong case for this one. But my understanding is that he's going to, you know, without bias, presents the formats that were in the GM survey. And I think that GM survey was to gather feedback. It's not necessarily a vote or a poll with what's going to happen. I don't think Adam, through this whole process, really cares what some of the teams are

saying in the sense that everybody. has their own incentive to have a certain opinion. Like I said, if you're the Bucks, you don't want it to change. You want to face Orlando. No kidding. You know, but I do think he is at least gauging the hunger and the appetite people have for something new. That's one team though, Kev. That's one team.

I know. Okay, I get it. We can keep on bringing up the Bucks versus Orlando. You know, you're going to have to beat people to get to where you want to get anyway. You know, we're talking about one round. Your second round matchup ain't a picnic. Look at who they're going to face in a fight. four or five.

No kidding. You could argue, no matter what it is. You could argue this turns out better for them. You could because who's four or five right now in the east? As it stands because I think Philly's now six. Miami, Indiana. Miami, Indiana. Okay, you're playing Miami.

And by the way, by the way, like the group stage, I don't think I said this earlier, but the group stage, you could still get the benefits of doing a conferenceless 16 team format for format with this because you would recede after. the group stage. And you could give the Bucks the lowest remaining seeded team because they had the best record. You could give the Lakers if they advance the second worst remaining seed. You could make that part of it here to build in these advantages that these teams did

earn under the traditional format. The Bucks and the Lakers, these teams that are essentially locked into the one seed, I understand their gripes that they could have. But at the same time, as you just said, Chris, it could work out better for them. And you get the Cinderella thing, Kiff. Yep. You do. Yep.

You get the Cinderella thing. If somebody did knock out the bucks or somebody did knock out the Lakers early, okay? Like you can say, okay, in the long run, that might not be the best thing to happen. But could you imagine what the sports world would be like if you're saying, let's say the kings are in that same. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. But let's just say they're in that pod. It's like game eight, game eight, Kings Lakers.

Lakers need to win or they're out. Right. And Marvin Bagley's healthy now, Kaff. He's had three months. And he just dominates them. Just dominate them. He's dropping 24 points and 12 rebounds a game. But you know this.

Fox is getting 20 and 10. Well, and we live this life during the summer with the World Cup in the years that it happens where it's like, oh my God, Germany's on the ropes or whatever, whoever. it very well may be, right? And next thing you know, it's 10 a.m. on a. Friday and everybody's at work and starts getting text and runs to the office TV to flip on, you know, Kings Lakers at noon to watch the end of the game because, oh my God, somebody could get knocked out. And, oh, I mean, I just think, I think people would go absolutely bananas over this. I see it. Me too, man. And you.

mentioned the timing of games. This is a sort of shift in topics here, but one of the things brought up to me is like, well, maybe it could be difficult with scheduling East Coast versus West Coast. I'm like, are you kidding me? You have maximum flexibility here. If you need to flex a game into prime time, you can do that two days in

advance. It's not a problem to flex games here. It's pretty simple with the neutral site. You could adapt to what the most interesting games are and slot them into the appropriate time. slots. I mean, up and down the board, up and down the board. This format provides maximum flexibility, maximum interests, and it's the fairest because it's what addresses the shuffling that could have

happened in the top eight with the standings, and it addresses the teams that were on the playoff bubble, the real playoff bubble in the Western Conference. Portland, Sacramento, New Orleans, and San Antonio would at least have a shot to get in for Memphis. But everything else also stands to with the amount of shuffling that could have occurred. I mean, this checks every box for me with what I would hope for for the NBA this summer. And I would bet it checks a lot of boxes for fans who otherwise wouldn't have cared, but now would. All right. Well, let us pray that Adam Silver, you know, read your article and listens to the pod as we are.

Look, it might be called a mismatch, but we are a thousand percent on the same page on this. I mean, a thousand percent. Have we agreed more? Have we agreed more than ever than we have on this podcast? I don't think so. This is the moment. I don't. You know what I mean?

This is the moment. No, truthfully. Because we're the match three, right? We have the match to this weekend. We're the match three. That's right. This would be just, I, I said it earlier. I would be disappointed that.

Like if it doesn't happen. Like I would feel underwhelmed with just starting up the playoffs. Eastern Conference plays theirs, Western Conference plays there. I mean, look, I'm the guy, as are you. I'm watching whatever the hell you put on. I will watch Buck's Magic, but I certainly, I'll give you, for instance, my son is an NBA fan. He loves it.

He's 10 years old. He ain't watching that. He's going to go play Fortnite. And then he's going to ask me when, you know, another game is on, when the Boston and the Sixers is on or whatever. Like, he ain't watching that. I think that if you put this together, I don't know who wouldn't watch.

Seriously. It's not that I would be disappointed if the NBA goes with the traditional 16 team format as it is. I'm not, it's not that I'd be disappointed if they do it without conferences. Because basketball being back, if it's safe and it works, would be awesome. It would be really special to watch this summer,

no matter what it is. However, I would be disappointed if the reason they didn't do, something innovative like this or didn't do something different like the group stage, I'd be disappointed if that's because they were afraid or they got cold feet of doing something different because all this talk this past week, you know, from talking heads, you know, we got asked about it too about should there be an asterisk this year. I think that's such garbage, man.

I mean, do the 90s Rockets get an astric because Michael Jordan was away playing baseball? No. did the 98 spurs because there was a 50 game ringer of a season? No. Did the 2012 Miami Heat because of a 66 game lockout short season? No. Do the Raptors last year because KD and Clay Thompson were out? No. There's always circumstances. It's goofy. It's silly and it's really maddening. And if that conversation from media, which is dictating the way certain fans feel and certain fans think in a way certain teams feel and the way they think,

think if that is the reason why the league decides, you know what, we're going to stick with what we know. I'd be disappointed about the process of the mindset there. I'd be happy to have basketball back, but I hope the league looks at this without bias and without concern because we just saw earlier this year, and this is a far, you know, lower level here. But the three weeks leading up to the All-Star game was people trashing the idea of the Elam ending.

Oh, it's confusing. This is silly. last year's All-Star game was fun. Why don't we just stick with that? You know what? They could have. But what they did was they tried something new. And as it was happening, people were like,

this is the greatest All-Star game I've ever seen in my freaking life. And now people want it every single year. Some people are taking it so far as to say, why not make this the Summer League ending? Why not use it in the G-League? Why don't experiment with it further? With the NBA this summer, what's happened to the world is horrible.

But the NBA also has an opportunity to just experiment with something that's great for fans, it could be great for the league. And I'll be disappointed if they don't at least take this very seriously, because this is something that could be great for the long term, if not just great for everybody this summer at a time. People want sports to give them something that makes them happy. I think the one thing that we could put real hope in, though, Kev, is silver has been willing.

Silver has been a guy that thinks outside of the box, and he has been willing to change things. you know, they just changed like you were talking about, okay, something as simple as the All-Star game. Be not dismayed, it was a year ago. The lottery changed completely. The lottery changed completely. For the better. And look at what happened.

I mean, it ended up with the Pelicans getting number one and the Grizzlies getting number two. And neither of those teams were the teams that had the best chance. In other seasons, they would have had a much, much, much lower chance of getting in the lottery as they did. And so things have changed and things have evolved over the course even the last couple of years. I don't think, you know, you even mentioned in the article about something he had said in Paris, you know, and things that he is a fan of.

And they brought up all these ideas of midseason tournaments and they've changed a lottery and they changed the All-Star Games. So because of him being in the leadership position, I, I, I feel. feel like a lot of league sometimes are just do what we know. I think he is always trying to figure out a different way to do stuff. And so because he's the leader, I actually feel like this is real. Like this ain't Roger Goodell doing it. And baseball has effed up everything. Because this could be their time right now. It really could. If they would add their ish together and they could have all gotten on the same page. They could have owned this.

The NBA now has a wide open door to just own the summer completely in sports. That's part of the reason that the World Cup, like when you're talking about it or other, it's the thing going on in the summer. That's part of the reason I get so into it. It's the thing going on. Well, you have the opportunity to be the thing going on. Now make it the most entertaining it could possibly be. The NBA has never experienced anything like it, and I'm hopeful it happens, and this week

will determine a lot of whether it does or doesn't. I hate this podcast. It's just me and you sitting there agreeing the entire thing. Say something I don't agree with. It's actually kind of funny. It's kind of funny having a pod where you and I just are going back and forth. Maybe the world really is coming to an end, Kevin. oh no

this is a sign of the apocalypse here only in a global pandemic can we come together all right well hey Bobby do you love this idea

I do love this idea I don't love the I don't love the swirl of media takes about how when the Lakers win this title won't count for LeBron towards his sex to catch up with that

ridiculous but that's definitely going to happen but as long as you can ignore that part of it I love the idea I'm a big World Cup guy as well Chris. That asterick talk is going to happen no matter the format.

It's got to happen no matter what. People like media is going to bring it up. LeBron deserve an asterisk. It's the stupidest thing to even talk about. I mean, I can't stand it. I get sick and tired of hearing about it. I think it's toxic. I think it is just misleading fans. I can't stand it, man. Not just

for LeBron, but anybody. I hated it last year of Toronto too. It was stupid. Teams deal with the circumstances that they're dealt. And every team was dealt the same. hand here with this pandemic that's happening. And if you're going to talk about Asterox Talk for one team or any team that wins the championship or that's in the finals, it's garbage. It's a waste of breath. And I wish that energy and those breaths and that thought was going to something more productive

and not Asterox Talk. I can't disagree. What the hell? I agree. What's going on in there? Kevin. Kevin, say something about Brooke Lopez, dude. No, no.

Let's get out of here. I hope Memphis and Milwaukee getting the same grouping, Chris. Get to see John Moran, running Bick and roll, Jaron Jackson, Puffin. What's Brooke Lopez going to do? He's going to drop.

You know what that is? That would be student versus the pupil. Ooh. Because Taylor Jenkins was his right-at man. Ooh, that'd be good. That'd be good. Yeah, it would be good. I'm into it.

Thanks to everybody, as always, for listening to another episode of the mismatch. Everybody get with the movement of the group stages. And hopefully, look, the NBA has been very responsive to its fans over the years. And hopefully they see a groundswell of support for this. I'm being honest about that. Yeah, I really want to know, like, tweet at me, tweet it Chris, tweet at Bobby, tweet at the NBA, and share your thoughts because the NBA, Adam Silver has said this himself.

He has said this himself. He cares about, you know, getting feedback and thoughts and opinions from anywhere. And so if this is something that you like or if it's something you don't, make your opinion and your voice be heard. Thanks to Bobby Wagner, as always for producing another episode. If you dig what you're hearing, go give us a rating and review. Five stars, five stars. It really helps. Kevin, I will talk to you on Friday.

Have a great rest of your week, Chris.