This fall will mark the 10th anniversary of the NBA changing its playoff rules and not guaranteeing a division champion a top-four seed regardless of record.
This season’s Southeast Division is a good reason why that change was necessary.
In NBA history, there’s never been a division with a worst won-loss record than the Southeast this season. Entering Monday, the five teams in the Southeast — Atlanta, Orlando, Miami, Charlotte and Washington — had a combined record of 113-200, that winning percentage of .369 set to be the worst of any division ever.
The official low bar, for now, is a winning percentage .384 by the Central Division in 1970-71. That was a season where Baltimore won the division at 42-40 and Atlanta, Cincinnati and Cleveland combined to go 84-162.
And this is the crazy part about the Southeast: this season, Atlanta, Orlando and Miami seem pretty much like locks for the play-in tournament at this point, meaning two of those teams are going to make the playoffs even though none are on pace to finish with a winning record.
“I don’t know division-wise, but I just know it seems in both conferences it’s a dogfight,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “With the play-in and everything, it’s been really good for the league. A lot more teams are competing.”
The Southeast being the NBA’s official battleground division is not a new thing. There won’t be a 50-win team from the Southeast this year; that’s no surprise, because there’s been only one — the 2021-22 Heat, who went 53-29 — in the last 10 seasons.
Let’s put that in some perspective. The Atlantic Division has had 15 teams reach the 50-win mark over the last decade, the Northwest and Pacific have each had 11, the Central and Southwest have each had nine. Boston is on pace to do it for a sixth time in that span, Cleveland has done it five including this season already, Golden State has done it five and Toronto has five such seasons in that span as well.
The Southeast? Nope, just the one.
Forget winning 50 games. Over the last decade there have been only 17 instances — out of 50 chances — of a Southeast team simply finishing a regular season with a winning record. And someone’s going to have to go on a heck of a tear if a team from the Southeast is going to add to that total this season. That said, there are three teams still very much in the race for something.
“I do feel like having more teams involved can be good,” Atlanta coach Quin Snyder said. “I think that distinction between being a playoff team and a play-in team is a little bit murky to me. It’s the postseason, in my mind.”
Charlotte and Washington are headed to the lottery and have been headed there from basically the start of the season. Miami, Atlanta and Orlando all still have hope of turning this season into something memorable.
The Heat went from the play-in to the NBA Finals two years ago, which is something that Snyder pointed to as further proof that the play-in is a huge opportunity for teams. The Southeast might end the year with the worst divisional record in NBA history, but there’s still a slew for the Hawks, Magic and Heat to play for.
“We have to fight our way out of this funk,” Orlando coach Jamahl Mosley said. “It’s exactly what it is, it’s a funk and we’ve got to fight our way out of it. … Because in this league, it can turn fast one way or the other.”
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