A bold idea to fix the end of the NBA regular season: Introducing Tiebreaker Day

The NBA needs more suspense on the last day of the season

For all of the talk about how close the standings have been throughout the 2022-23 NBA season, the final day of the regular season is looking pretty dull. All 10 Eastern Conference seeds locked officially as of Friday. The top four seeds in the Western Conference are all locked as well. There is a bit of movement possible within the next five Western Conference seeds, but it is both minimal and unlikely.  

After one of the tightest regular seasons in NBA history, all that's really likely to be settled on Sunday is who will earn the No. 8 and No. 9 seeds in the Western Conference. In a fun twist, the New Orleans Pelicans and Minnesota Timberwolves will play each other, and if the teams above them in the standings all take care of business, the winner will take No. 8 while the loser falls to No. 9. 

These problems haven't been confined to the regular season finale. Friday featured a number of marquee games ruined by rest: Kings vs. Lakers, Mavericks vs. Bulls, Kings vs. Warriors and Bucks vs. Grizzlies are all games that should have mattered but ultimately didn't. The problem has grown so dire that it's worth wondering if the NBA should even bother trying to create competitive matchups in the season's closing days. The odds of both teams taking those games seriously are relatively slim.

So I'm going to propose a possible solution to this, and it's a relatively simple one. The NBA's current scheduling procedure is to release an 82-game schedule for all 30 teams during the offseason that ends on either the first or second Sunday of April. This idea would follow that approach with one major exception: the schedule for the last Sunday of the regular season would be left blank. All 30 teams would play on that final Sunday, but their opponents would be based on the standings. Priority would be given to the following matchups:

• If two teams in the top 11 of their conference standings are tied after 81 games, those two teams must play one another.
• If two teams that have been eliminated from playoff contention are tied after 81 games, those two teams must play one another.
• If two teams that have clinched spots in the top 10 in separate conferences are tied, those two teams must play one another so long as they do not have a tie in their own conference that needs to be settled first.

As you can probably tell from the headline, we would call this gimmick "tiebreaker day." It would eliminate the usage of most of the NBA's current tie-breaking procedures and instead allow teams the opportunity to win their way into higher seeds or home-court advantage in a potential Finals matchup at the end of the season, when they should theoretically be peaking.

This approach solves a number of problems for the NBA. Obviously, it would create several marquee matchups on the final day of regular season play. Some of those matchups could possibly be previews of series we eventually see in the postseason, which no fan is going to turn down. It would disincentivize load management in the final week of the regular season as well, as teams could no longer rely on tiebreakers settled months earlier to give them the edge over certain opponents. They'd have to ensure that they finish with a superior record if they want to finish ahead of a given team.

It could also be used as an anti-tanking measure. If the NBA is using these games as tiebreakers, it could tweak the lottery system so that lottery ties are settled by who wins the final game between the two teams. In fact, if the league wanted to make things especially difficult for tankers, it could mandate that any player who sat out of the team's final few games would not be eligible to play on tiebreaker day. Imagine a scenario in which the Portland Trail Blazers need to win on the final day of the regular season to maximize their lottery position... but can't because they've been sitting Damian Lillard.

These are not perfect measures, mind you. Ultimately, ties after 81 games are relatively rare. Even with these changes, there would still be plenty of meaningless basketball on the last day of the regular season. But the current approach rarely creates exciting finales. This change would at least open the door for a few more.

There are still a few problems left to solve here, so let's go point-by-point on some of the biggest questions that need to be answered:

• What do we do about three-way ties? Use existing tiebreakers to knock one of the three teams out, and the two remaining teams would play. In a four-way tie, the top two teams by existing tiebreakers would play each other for the two best seeds and the bottom two teams would play each other for the bottom two.
• What happens if a team ties another team in the standings based on games played on tiebreaker day? Nothing. The standings would lock after 81 games, and teams would only be able to move up or down based on the events of their tiebreaker game. You had 81 games to catch the team that's one game ahead of you. If you can't do it, that's on you.
• Wouldn't there be logistical problems with arenas not knowing if they are hosting games and season ticket holders not knowing if they can attend games? The most fun theoretical solution here would be neutral site games. It would be a great opportunity for the NBA to test out new potential markets and ensure that ties are broken in the fairest ways possible. Between colleges, NHL cities and cities that are hoping to one day lure NBA teams, there are certainly 15 usable buildings in cities that do not currently host NBA teams that are capable of doing so for one game. The NBA could also insist that all 30 arenas hold the date open in case they are needed, but that's far less interesting.
• Couldn't this lead to unbalanced schedules in which certain teams play each other more often than others? Yes. This is a feature, not a bug. Don't we want the best teams to play one another as often as possible? The NBA has a really hard time fostering rivalries in the player-movement era. Games like these would go a long way towards doing that. So long as NBA teams play their non-conference opponents twice and their divisional opponents four times, the specifics of their remaining schedule should be flexible. Some teams might end up playing more home games than others in this world, but that could be balanced out over several seasons, or, if the NBA is willing to sacrifice a game off of the schedule, the season could be shortened to 81 games so that the pre-tiebreaker schedule includes 40 home games and 40 road games per team. If that is a non-starter, the league could maintain an 82-game schedule and then use tiebreaker day as an 83rd game.
• Wouldn't the upcoming in-season tournament throw a wrench in these plans, as some teams are now slated to play more games than others? Yes. For this plan to work, the schedule would have to be adjusted so that all 30 teams play the same number of games before this final Sunday. That number could be 82, 81, 80 or whatever number makes the most sense for the league. One possible solution here would be for the league not to count in-season tournament games towards the regular season schedule once they would take a team beyond whatever the majority of the league plays, but decree that the team that wins the in-season tournament would receive an automatic tiebreaker over every other team in the NBA.
• What do we do about teams that have nothing specific to play for? We get creative. Are two players competing for an award? Let's put them on a court together and give both a chance to make one last impression on the voters. Is a notable player about to retire? Give him one final chance to face his original team. The NBA could decide the most interesting possible matchups at its own discretion.

With 81 games in the books, the 2022-23 season would have quite a few tiebreaker games locked in on the schedule. The Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors would play head-to-head for the No. 5 seed in the Western Conference, as they are both 43-38. The Lakers and Pelicans, at 42-39, would play head-to-head for the No. 7 seed... and then the two of them would play again in the play-in round as the No. 7 and 8 seeds in the Western Conference. The Rockets and Spurs would play a lottery tiebreaker. So would the Pacers and Magic. Here's a fun one: the Suns and Nets would face off as opponents in opposing conferences with the same record, pitting Kevin Durant against his former team. We'd get three more games set by the same rule: Grizzlies-Cavaliers, Hawks-Timberwolves and Thunder-Bulls. Some of these games are more interesting than others, but this slate is certainly more interesting than what we currently have planned for Sunday.

And if not for load management throughout the week, we might have even better games. The Nuggets limited the minutes of their best players against the Utah Jazz on Saturday and ultimately lost. Had they won, however, they'd be tied with the Philadelphia 76ers, forcing a tiebreaker game between the top two MVP candidates (Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid) to determine home-court advantage in a possible Finals matchup.

This isn't a perfect system, and the rules would need to be tweaked over time. But it simplifies an overly complicated and anti-climactic tiebreaker system, disincentivizes late-season load management and could potentially give us some incredible games on the last day of the season. Doesn't that sound a lot more fun than what we currently have?