Sports Column

Lopsided NBA can leave best behind

On Sports

By dwight jaynes

The Portland Tribune, Mar 7, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (5 Reader comments)

David Stern is the greatest commissioner of our era, a man who has made a truckload of money for a lot of NBA players and owners – which is what he’s hired to do – while not being afraid to stand up to those people when it’s in the best interest of the game.

It’s not an easy job.

A Stern interview usually is a pleasure – he’s funny and has heard all the questions so many times he always has a ready response. But I was surprised Tuesday when he said the league might change its ridiculous playoff situation.

The problem is that the West for several seasons has had more talented teams than the East. And while eight teams in each conference make the playoffs, the East has only five clubs – Boston, Detroit, Orlando, Cleveland and Toronto – above .500. As it stands, the eighth-place team in the East, New Jersey, is a miserable 26-35. In the West, Denver is 36-24 and in ninth place.

“We will be considering something,” Stern says. “But it’s a very hard subject. My narrow-minded view is, if you have an unbalanced schedule, then you don’t take teams out of the West and put them in the East unless you decided to go to a balanced schedule where everyone plays everyone the same amount of times. Then you can take the top 16 and do it.”

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