I was up all night and I did not go to bed until 11 am so I wrote this at my earliest convenience.

The NBA playoffs start today. A few years ago, NBA Commish, David Stern changed the format of the first round of the playoffs from the best of 5 to best of 7. Utter stupidity. If that was not enough, this year he changed the way playoff teams are seeded. Instead of the 8 teams with the top 8 records in each respective conference getting the top 8 seeds; the new system gives the top 3 seeds to the teams that win the 3 divisions in each conference and the teams with the top 5 records regardless of division get the other 5 seeds. He tried to be smart by making it so that regardless of who has the higher seed, the team with the best record would get the home court advantage. So the west’s number 3 seed, Denver Nuggets will be the away team when they match up with the 6 seeded L.A. Clippers. That is dumb. The 3 seeded Denver Nuggets would be the number 8 seed in the former system. Although they have the same record as the 8th seeded Sacramento Kings, they loss 3 of the 4 games versus the Kings giving the Kings a higher seed.

The playoffs this year:
8 sacramento vs 1 SAN ANTONIO
7 lakers vs 2 PHOENIX
3 denver vs 6 CLIPPERS
5 memphis vs DALLAS

What it would have looked like last year
8 nuggets at 1 SAN ANTONIO
7 kings vs 2 DALLAS
6 lakers vs 3 SUNS
5 clippers vs 4 MEMPHIS

This affects second round matchups. Under the new system, if both the Spurs and Mavs win their series they will meet in the second round. That is not right because these two teams have the top two records in the western conference. And thus should not have to play each other in the second round. You play the regular season to put yourself in the best position to make it the farthest in the post season. This system does not allow for that.

Okay since it is so late I will not give any picks, but I will tell you how I see this playing out.

West:
1 San Antonio over 8 Sacramento in 5
7 Lakers over 2 Phoenix in 7
3 Nuggets over 6 Clippers in 6
4 Dallas over 5 Memphis in 7

East:
1 Detroit over 8 Milwaukee in 4
2 New Jersey over 7 Indiana in 6
6 Chicago over 3 Miami in 7
5 Washington over 4 Cleveland in 7

I know you all may be surprised that I picked the Bulls over the Heat. To me the Heat are not that good and on an even playing field they would lose to the Bulls. But Shaq is going to get the calls so the Miami will probably advance.