Re: Expansion
Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2025 11:26 pm
I can't imagine that most players would be in favor of expansion. Of course some bench guys would become starters, but the chance of being on a championship team drop from 1/30 to 1/32 or whatever.
Chance of making the playoffs? Well there's another angle. The league allowed more than half of teams into the postseason all but a couple years in the early '70s. Now we are in this limbo period, where they are frozen at 16, but another 4 teams have a slim chance via the Play-In. These are games of utmost importance but which do not count as either regular- or post-season.
So if there were 32 teams, there could again be a playoff format in which each conference lets their top 6 teams in with a 'bye', and 4 others have a shorter 1st-round series.
It seems kind of nice to have a consistent ratio of playoff / regular season games.
Summary of each phase (or season) of playoff games in a year. Broken down by [best of] 7, 5, and 3-game series.
Number of teams each year, length of RS, # in playoffs, total RS games, expected PO games -- this just assigns 5.5 games to best of 7 series, 4 to (5), and 2.5 to (3) -- and finally the % of games that were PO.That final column is also the avg fraction of player minutes that were playoffs. Late '70s - early '80s guys got shorted a bit.
* 1954 had a round-robin start to the playoffs. 23 is the actual number of games that year.
I did not adjust the lockout shortened seasons of 1999 and 2012, nor the Covid years, 2020-21. They would obviously be bumped up in their po%.
Chance of making the playoffs? Well there's another angle. The league allowed more than half of teams into the postseason all but a couple years in the early '70s. Now we are in this limbo period, where they are frozen at 16, but another 4 teams have a slim chance via the Play-In. These are games of utmost importance but which do not count as either regular- or post-season.
So if there were 32 teams, there could again be a playoff format in which each conference lets their top 6 teams in with a 'bye', and 4 others have a shorter 1st-round series.
It seems kind of nice to have a consistent ratio of playoff / regular season games.
Summary of each phase (or season) of playoff games in a year. Broken down by [best of] 7, 5, and 3-game series.
Number of teams each year, length of RS, # in playoffs, total RS games, expected PO games -- this just assigns 5.5 games to best of 7 series, 4 to (5), and 2.5 to (3) -- and finally the % of games that were PO.
Code: Select all
year Tms Sch poT (7) (5) (3) rsG poG* po%
1950 17 68 12 1 0 10 578 30.5 .050
1951 11 66 8 1 2 4 355 23.5 .062
1952 10 66 8 1 2 4 330 23.5 .066
1953 10 70 8 1 2 4 350 23.5 .063
1954 9 72 6 1 0 ?? 324 23 * .066
55-57 8 72 6 1 2 2 288 18.5 .060
58-59 8 72 6 3 0 2 288 21.5 .069
1960 8 75 6 3 0 2 300 21.5 .067
1961 8 79 6 3 2 0 316 24.5 .072
62-66 9 80 6 3 2 0 360 24.5 .064
year Tms Sch poT (7) (5) (3) rsG poG* po%
1967 10 81 8 3 4 0 405 32.5 .074
1968 12 82 8 7 0 0 492 38.5 .073
69-70 14 82 8 7 0 0 574 38.5 .063
71-74 17 82 8 7 0 0 697 38.5 .052
75-76 18 82 10 7 0 2 738 43.5 .056
77-80 22 82 12 7 0 4 902 48.5 .051
81-83 23 82 12 7 0 4 943 48.5 .049
84-88 23 82 16 7 8 0 943 70.5 .070
1989 25 82 16 7 8 0 1025 70.5 .064
90-95 27 82 16 7 8 0 1107 70.5 .060
year Tms Sch poT (7) (5) (3) rsG poG* po%
96-02 29 82 16 7 8 0 1189 70.5 .056
03-04 29 82 16 15 0 0 1189 82.5 .065
05-25 30 82 16 15 0 0 1230 82.5 .063
* 1954 had a round-robin start to the playoffs. 23 is the actual number of games that year.
I did not adjust the lockout shortened seasons of 1999 and 2012, nor the Covid years, 2020-21. They would obviously be bumped up in their po%.