The NBA has all but abolished divisions by taking away the automatic playoff seed for winners. But winning a division still has psychological importance.
The NBA last week announced it would seed the conference playoffs based solely on record. The division champions would not longer get their guarantee of a top four seed (and, I would imagine the only guarantee they get now is a playoff berth although that appears not to be the case).
For many, it was the “about time” final nail in the coffin of an idea that had died a long time ago — with the advent of private jets, national broadcasts and conference imbalance and what not. Division have long not mattered, a fake goal to strive for that held really very little value in the grand scheme of things to make and advance in the Playoffs.
As everyone seemed to have grown tired of the hidden advantage weaker teams in the Atlantic Division and, last year, the Portland Trail Blazers took advantage to send teams with better records into tougher matchups (as fun as that Spurs and Clippers first round series was).
The only thing divisions have seemed to set in recent years was the guarantee of playing four other teams four times per season. They were not eligible for just three intra-conference matchups.
That is it. That is about all divisions get you.
In Major League Baseball, divisions matter immensely. The unbalanced scheduling heavily favors division games. A much higher proportion of a team’s games are played against teams in their division. The NFL is similar with teams playing the other teams in their division twice every year with no guarantee of even playing the other teams in their conference once.
The NBA schedule long lost that heavy lean toward divisions. Conferences matter much more. The majority of a team’s games — 52 of the 82 games — are divided among teams within the conference. This is where the weight of competition in the NBA lies.
The decision to dump the importance of divisions is not a surprising one from the NBA. It is the right one too if the league wants to make sure the best eight teams from each conference make the Playoffs. The rumblings to eliminate conferences has begun, but that cannot happen until there is more balanced scheduling across conferences.
Still, it is something of a sad death for divisions. There have been articles lamenting the death of division rivalries that existed throughout the 1980s and early 1990s before expansion watered down the schedules.
It is not so much about that there will be some form of the division format that will be missed. The Magic and Heat will always be natural rivals. And the Magic’s rivalries with former Atlantic Division opponents like the Knicks and 76ers were probably more imagined by a franchise trying to create legitimacy than by anything that actually existed.
What will get missed is the, albeit minor, status symbol that comes from winning a division.
The Magic took down their division championship banners from inside the Amway Center a few years ago. It seemed after the Magic reached the NBA Finals in 2009 and won the third straight Southeast Division title in 2010, they had lost their meaning. The team’s eyes were pressed solely on the big gold trophy you get at the end.
Those division champions still hang inside the practice facility, lest you think they were completely forgotten.
Division championships might hold no actual meaning when it comes to Playoff seeding, but they did hold some sort of spiritual meaning. It was always a sign a team was on the rise and that fans had reason to believe something bigger was on the horizon.
The Magic have won five division titles in their team’s history. The first division championship in 1995 was met with streamers and all the trappings and celebration a first division title should get.
In 2008, the Magic won their first division title in 12 years. And it meant something. Just like getting out of the first round that season for the first time in 12 years meant something. It was a validation that all Stan Van Gundy was building in just his first year had a direction and had produced results.
It was almost a rite of passage on the way to winning a title.
This is the part where you give the typical answer: of course you win your division title on your way to the championship. It is just a tick mark the good teams check off. That is absolutely true. The division championship in 1996 felt like a foregone conclusion just as it did in 2010. It meant nothing — just a note at the end of a story or game recap.
On the way up though, these milestones are incredibly meaningful. They are a tangible result that legitimizes the rise to the top. It is something to celebrate in a sports culture that often gives fans very little to celebrate. When a team is at or close to the very top of the mountain, only one goal is worth celebrating.
The division championship then is something like the team in sixth place of the Premier League in English soccer qualifying for Europa League (not even Champions League!). Or the team that avoids relegation.
It is not the main goal, but it is something nice to hold onto. Something tangible to point to as a sign of better things to come. It is that important stepping stone for any franchise looking to compete for bigger prizes.
Division championships come with no actual reward. But there is a psychological one. Particularly for young teams.
For the teams not competing for championships, division titles remain a goal worth achieving and striving for. It is something a good team should accomplish anyway.
Even if they no longer come with banners or much fanfare anymore, there still feels like there should be value for division titles. Even if it does not come with any extra reward in the Playoffs.
The divisions and their psychological importance certainly is not dead.