The NBA Needs To Get Rid of the Six Divisions

Look, if you asked me a few years ago about the NBA [or the MLB or NHL or NFL] spreading out into more divisions ... I would've told you I was for it.  To have more divisions means to have more things to play for [like division titles] and places teams that are geographically close to each other in a nice tidy division.

Well, screw that.

While the NFL and MLB has made it work, the NHL and NBA really haven't.  At least the NHL merits the divisional format, somewhat, by having divisional foes play each other more than anyone else.  However, the NHL has become a bus league where facing your 'rival' eight times a season loses it's luster. 

The NBA doesn't do that.  So why have all these divisions? 

DIVISION TITLES ARE MEANINGLESS:  They are meaningless because it all depends on the teams in your geographic region.  Take the Miami Heat.  The Heat have played pretty much the exact same schedule as the Cleveland Cavaliers.  Yet, the Cavs have won four more games than the Heat.  Yet, because the city of Miami is near Washington, Orlando, Charlotte and Atlanta ... the Heat will be division champions and get a good seed in the playoffs.  Cleveland plays in a division with nearby Detroit and Chicago, the top two teams in the entire conference.  Because of that, the Cavs are slated to be a #5 seed while Miami is #4. 

THE NBA FIXED THAT WITH IT'S PLAYOFF FORMAT:  Yeah, right.  This will most likely be the second straight season [out of three possible] that there will be a top seeded team that won't have home court advantage in the first round.  Last year, the #6 Clippers had the homecourt over the #3 Nuggets which caused a firestorm because the #5 Grizzlies didn't have the homecourt.  Instead, they got to face #4 Dallas who had the West's second best record.  So the NBA decided to fix it a bit but it's still screwed up.  While the new way would have had the Grizzlies face the Nuggets last year, what's the point of having a division champ guaranteed at least the #4 seed? 

THE NORTHWEST DIVISION:  I'm all for the southeast teams or central teams or southwest teams all bunched together ... but what about the Northwest Division?  The division spans three time zones and stretches from Minneapolis to Seattle.  Meanwhile, Milwaukee and Chicago are just little road trips to them, but they travel there just once.  You may not think that's a huge deal, but Milwaukee has just seven road games in the Pacific time zone.  Minnesota potentially has 14. 

To be honest, I'd rather see the NBA break up into two conferences only.  Just have a 15-team East and a 15-team West with the top 8 teams getting a playoff berth in each conference. 

To be really honest, I'd rather the NBA just take the top 16 teams regardless of division or conference and place them in the playoffs.