On April 27, Beijing time, according to marc Stein, a well-known reporter in the NBA, some teams have written to the NBA official to request changes to the play-off rules, and NBA President Xiao Hua has also been open to discussions on such topics.
The current NBA play-off rule is that the top 6 in the East and West go directly to the playoffs, and the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th places participate in the playoffs. These teams that demand a change of rules are not asking for the complete abolition of the play-off rules, they want to change the rules to the 9th and 10th and 8th places to maintain a certain gap between the record, and then hold the play-offs.
Because according to today's rules, no matter how big the gap between the 9th and 10th places in the regular season and the 7th and 8th places, they can participate in the playoffs. And the Clippers, who are 8th in the West this season, are 6 wins ahead of the 9th place Pelicans and 8 wins ahead of the 10th place Spurs, and the gap is actually very large.
However, in the end, the Clippers lost to the Pelicans, resulting in their lack of playoffs. This is an unfair effort for the Clippers throughout the season, which is equivalent to ruthless obliteration. In the Eastern Conference playoff, the 8th seed cavaliers also lost to the 9th seed hawks.
Others argue that if it's a shrink season, it's more reasonable to host play-offs. But if you play 82 regular season games in a season, in this case, there is not much point in playing the playoffs.
However, the NBA has not replied to whether the play-off rules will be modified next season. While this rule may feel unfair to some teams, it is easy to attract the attention of outside audiences because the format of 1 game is very exciting. So in this case, the possibility of the NBA abolishing the playoffs is probably very low.