By now you have no doubt heard about the James Harden-Ben Simmons trade.
But would the Phillies and the Mets have ever made such a deal?
Or the Eagles and the Giants?
Or the Flyers and the Rangers?
What made the blockbuster trade that sent 37-year old James Harden (with Paul Milsap, who turned 37 himself on Friday, thrown in as an afterthought) from the Brooklyn Nets to the Philadelphia 76ers in exchange for Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, Andre (please, don't call him "Janitor in A") Drummond, and two first-round draft picks (one in this summer's draft, the other in, oddly, 2027) so atypical — and it must be said, so lame — is the fact that the Sixers and the Nets are in the same division — the Eastern Conference's Atlantic Division.
The trade has conjured up memories of how the Eagles made an eerily similar trade that brought quarterback Roman Gabriel, coming off the worst season of his career, caused largely by recurring knee and shoulder problems, from the Rams in 1973 in exchange for All-Pro wide receiver Harold Jackson and running back Tony Baker, plus two first-round picks and a third-rounder.
But then again, the NBA has never really emphasized division rivalries — least of all at present, when not only does each team play just four games against each of their four division rivals, but also playing six of the 10 teams in the two divisions within their own conference four times and the other four such teams three times, with two meetings between teams not in the same conference.
And the only scenario under which division finish matters in determining playoff seeds — or, for that matter, playoff berths outright — is if, at the end of the regular season, two teams finish with the same record, and one of them won their division while the other did not, in which case the division winner gets the higher seed — and even then, that is the second tie-breaker, after the head-to-head results of the four (or three) games played between them.
(This situation has also led to most newspapers, etc. sorting the NBA standings by conference — not by division).
Therefore, if the five teams within a given division finish with the five worst records in that conference, the first-place team in said division would not make the playoffs — the only sport of which this can possibly be true.
Throughout its existence, the ABA played an 84-game schedule — two games longer than the NBA's 82-game slate (for comparative purposes, the NHL played an 84-game schedule in 1992-93 and 1993-94, thereafter rolling it back to 82 games, same as in the NBA).
Since having non-conference opponents meet only once is a non-starter — the NBA has never observed such a format, and the NHL ended its experiment along these lines in 2013 — an 84-game schedule allows for a simple "6-3-2" distribution, with each team playing their four division rivals six times, the 10 teams in the other two divisions within the same conference three times, and the 15 teams in the other conference twice, as is done now.
Maybe teams that play each other six times a year instead of four would be more reluctant to make trades with one another?
And once this is done, the NBA needs to rework its playoff format, as follows: the top two teams in each division should not only automatically make the playoffs, but also get to evade the new "play-in" round, which should henceforth feature the next four teams with the best records.
However, after the last two playoff teams are determined, the playoff field in each conference is re-seeded, strictly by record, then re-seeded again for the conference semifinals, thus taking away any incentive for a team battling for the 5 and 6 seeds to tank games in the hope of getting the 6-seed rather than the 5-seed.
But what if the NBA expands at some point in the future? As Ted Kennedy should have said, they can cross that bridge when they come to it.
The NBA has not been shy about imitating the ABA in the past — witness the three-point basket (although the NBA has kept its 24-second shot clock while the ABA had used a 30-second clock).
And if the NBA wants a public-relations buzz, they can switch to the ABA's iconic red-white-and-blue basketball, concomitant with adding the two extra games.
The vast majority of talk radio callers in Philadelphia, harangued by hosts like the duo of Mike Missanelli and Tyrone Johnson — who have a television as well as a radio show, giving them twin platforms — are lauding this lopsided deal.
That's cause for concern in and of itself.
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