Here we are at the All-Star break, so let’s take a look at the NBA standings and see what is ahead for the playoffs. Ten teams in the West really have a shot. There are 4 teams that appear to be fighting it out for 2 playoff spots – Golden State, Houston, Denver, and Portland. In the East it looks a lot uglier. There are 3 teams with losing records that would be in the playoffs if the season ended today – Washington, New Jersey, and Philadelphia.

In the East, we’d be looking forward to first-round match-ups of Boston vs. Philadelphia and Detroit vs. New Jersey among others. Ugh!

This needs to be fixed. David Stern are you listening?

The other problem the NBA has is the prospect of a boring NBA Finals. Just look at the 2007 NBA Finals for an example. Does the NBA really want another Spurs vs. Cavs series? No way. If Boston or Detroit wins the Eastern conference playoffs this year, we’ll probably enjoy a better match-up in the Finals, but that’s not guaranteed to happen.

Here’s an option they should consider – seed the 16 best teams in the NBA and match them up in a normal tournament structure. This does away with the weak East versus powerful West problem. Given the standings right now, we’d have these match-ups:

1. Boston vs. 16. Washington
2. Detroit vs. 15. Portland
3. New Orleans vs. 14. Toronto
4. Phoenix vs. 13. Cleveland
5. LA Lakers vs. 12. Orlando
6. San Antonio vs. 11. Denver
7. Dallas vs. 10. Houston
8. Utah vs. 9. Golden State

Much better. These match-ups look a heck of a lot more entertaining. 6 teams from the East and 10 teams from the West. Seems pretty fair to me.

Why would the NBA be against a system like this? Well, there is the old argument of travel is difficult. Give me a break. All the NBA teams travel in luxury on chartered jets. There’s no excuse for travel difficulties. That’s an outdated argument. MLB does it – get over it. Detroit vs. Portland in the first round we’d be so much more compelling.

If the NBA doesn’t like this system, then at least do away with the East versus West in the Finals and seed the 4 best teams remaining after the first 2 rounds. In last year’s playoffs that would have pitted the Spurs vs. Cavs in the semifinals and the Pistons vs. Jazz in the other semifinal. That would have allowed the Finals to be the Spurs vs. Jazz or Spurs vs. Pistons – both of which would have been more championship worthy.

Since I moved to the Bay Area (12+ years ago) I’ve been following the Golden State Warriors and over the years they have become my favorite local team. They have consistently been underdogs and struggled to find an identity, but I always like rooting for the underdog. Management has shuffled players and coaches and the results have been below average, until recently. In 2007, after Chris Mullin pulled the trigger on a trade to get Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington, the team made its first playoff appearance in 13 years and is now positioning itself to be a serious threat in the Western Conference.

So I couldn’t stop myself from writing about the Warriors. It’s January 2008 and the Warriors are 21-16 as I write this. They have played some tough teams and done fairly well on the road thus far – 11-9.

Now comes an interesting stretch in the schedule. For the remainder of January they have a string of games they should win and then they close with a tough back-to-back at Houston and then at New Orleans. Before that tough finish they have 8 very winnable games – Indiana, at Minnesota, at Indiana, at Chicago, at Milwaukee, Minnesota, New Jersey and New York. They need to go 6-2 or better. They are capable of it, but anything less than 6-2 would be a disappointment and will hurt their chances of making the playoffs in the West. They need to dominate this part of their schedule.

I could see them having tough games on the back ends of their back-to-back games – at Indiana and at Milwaukee. I could also see them having difficulty matching up with Chicago. They got blown out by 30 pts last February at Chicago. They also have struggled against New Jersey, losing earlier this year on the road and going 1-1 last season.

A 6-2 or 7-1 stretch plus a victory in one of their final two games of January and the Warriors should be in good shape to make the Western Conference playoffs. Go Warriors.

It’s kind of ironic that on the day the Portland Trailblazers win the NBA Draft lottery, this article about the NBA considering revamping the lottery system comes out.

Teams that performed poorly surely did not get rewarded in this draft. The teams that tanked the worst – Boston and Memphis – are going to miss out on the chance to draft Greg Oden or Kevin Durant.

What do they need to revamp? Going back to a system that’s purely based on the final standings is not the answer. The lottery system worked in this case. Even though it doesn’t work every year, it only takes a year like this one or the one in which Orlando got the top pick (when they barely finished in lottery position) to make GMs and Coaches think twice about making weak efforts at the end of the season.

- Eric