Mark Cuban got his wish from the league but couldn?t hold up his end of the bargain.  This NBA season marked the initial postseason that reordered the top four seeds in each conference based on winning percentage, rather than granting the top three spots to the three division champions.  This was largely due to the continued feuding between Mark Cuban and Commissioner David Stern over Cuban?s Dallas Mavericks who were often forced into facing top opponents in the second round, rather than in the conference finals.  

The Mavericks won the second-most games in the Western Conference last year, but were still positioned in the number four seed because the top-seeded San Antonio Spurs hail from the same division.  Meanwhile, the Northwest Division champion Denver Nuggets were awarded the number three seed despite having only 44 wins: 16 fewer than the Mavericks.  The 60-win Mavs were then forced into playing the top-tier Spurs in the second round, although they were the two best teams in the conference all season and should have waited to meet in the Western Conference Finals.

Cuban was outraged that his squad was forced into a situation where he had to contend with the number one seed in the second round, when his team was clearly better during the regular season than those seeded ahead of them.  This obviously didn?t matter much as the Mavericks were able to dispose of the Spurs and eventually the Phoenix Suns in the playoffs en route to their first-ever NBA Finals appearance.  

This season donned the beginning of a new era in the NBA?s second season.  Had these new playoff positioning rules not been enforced this season we would have had the following playoff seeds in the West:

1. Dallas Mavericks
2. Phoenix Suns
3. Utah Jazz
4. San Antonio Spurs

Of course, the new seeding rules were enforced and instead we have the Spurs in the number three-seed, which would allow the Mavericks to avoid the troublesome Spurs in round 2.  

However, the mighty Mavericks were taken down by the pesky Golden State Warriors in a shocking first round upset.  Now, we are faced again with seeing the top two remaining teams, the Phoenix Suns and the San Antonio Spurs, battle it out in round 2 rather than in the Western Conference Finals.  

There is a simple solution to this problem: copy the playoff format of the NHL.  Yes, the National Hockey League.  The NHL reseeds each team following each round, which allows the top seed to continually match up with the lowest seeded team remaining in the bracket.  

The NBA is the only one of the Big Four professional sports leagues (NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL) that does not serve up the lowest seed to the top seed in each round.  The MLB grants the top team in each league to play against the worst division winner or the wild card winner, unless the wild card winner is not from the same division.  The NFL grants bye weeks to the top two teams in each conference, and then pits the top team with the worst remaining team in the second round.  And the NHL reseeds each team following each round, allowing for a ?best versus worst? battle in each round.  

Why is this important?  Why do fans want to see the best team playing the worst team in the second round?  Doesn?t that lead to more blow outs and less entertaining playoff series?  The reason is because this is the only way to guarantee that the two BEST teams are still standing in the conference finals and ultimately the NBA Finals.  

Yes, the top three seeds in the NHL are the three division winners, so yes, that would negate my reseeding point and the Spurs and Mavericks would be fixtures for the second round anyway assuming the top four seeds win out in the first round.  However, my proposal is to continue the new format of granting the top four seeds to the three division winners and the top non-division champ, but institute a reseeding policy to take place after each round.  

This would then shift the playoff match-up out West from Suns versus Spurs and Warriors versus the winner of the Utah Jazz/Houston Rockets series to Suns versus Warriors, a scorekeeper?s nightmare, and Spurs versus Jazz/Rockets.  These two modified second round series sound much more entertaining since the Warriors and Suns play an aggressive, fast-paced, high-flying game while the Spurs, Jazz, and Rockets all prefer to slow the pace down and play a half court game.  

The two differences in styles of game play between these five remaining West teams is interesting and would be better seen in the second round than what we will be privy to once the second round commences.  

Stern is now in this predicament because the top seeded Dallas Mavericks became the third number-one-seed in league history to fall to an eight-seed.  While the Commissioner has taken a step in the right direction by implementing the policy that allows the Spurs to be the third seed this season rather than the fourth, he still has one more justification to make his playoff strategy complete and infallible.  Either that or he should tell Mark Cuban to instruct his 67-win team not to collapse faster than Mike Vick?s dog breeding business.

Should the NBA adopt the NHL reseeding policy for the playoffs?  Feel free to contact Jason M. Williams with your thoughts.  He can be reached at Jason.Williams@RealGM.com for comments or questions.