Monday, May 13, 2013
Realignment options
There are two kinds of realignment discussions: those that are deathly boring, and those that are unrealistic but interesting. I prefer the latter.
I've proposed a few options in the? past, mostly on the idea that whatever you do is unfair anyway, so let's at least recognize that, and try to make it fair in some manner. The other part of the idea is that there's no reason that these alignments need to be a marriage. The NHL realigns constantly, the World Cup of soccer always has a draw, etc.
Anyway, here's a new proposal: three conferences of ten teams each. It's mostly split by time zone, because that's what teams prefer, and it's secondarily built on region. Or vice versa. Whatever. It's nice and clean and deathly boring. Here's the part that's not deathly boring:
Top two of each conference advance to the playoffs, plus two wild card teams. How do we figure those two teams? The first two+ months of the season, it's only inter-conference games, say 3 games a piece, for a total of 60 games. We compile the W/L at the conference level. If the Eastern conference wins more than they lose against the Midwest conference, and the Eastern wins more than they lose against the Western, then the Eastern conference gets two wild cards. If each conference beats the other (all 1-1), then we go to aggregate W/L, and the top two conferences each sends one wild card.
With the number of playoff spots now determined at the conference level, the season continues with a rest-of-season intra-conference only games (say 11 per team times 9 opponents, for 99 games).
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You can also make it that you have 4 wild card teams, and they play-in for the 2 playoff spots. If all three conferences tie, they each send their #3 team, and the conference with the best aggregated W/L sends their #4 team. If one conference goes 2-0, they send their #3, 4, 5, and the conference that went 1-1 sends their #3. The conference that went 0-2 doesn't send any wild card teams.
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Feel free to comment, but PLEASE, the more outlandish, the better. As long as it's interesting. Put thought behind it, but do not be boring about it either.
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