With the playoffs having at last arrived for the NHL and the NBA, it is again time to speculate how meaningful the regular season has been when more than half of all teams qualify for the playoffs. True, at least the very worst of teams have now been exiled from our viewing landscape. Beyond this welcome respite, however, the whole point of the regular season seems unclear. Suppose that, instead of the current system, all teams qualified for the playoffs. The odds in Vegas would still be very high against any team beyond the top eight in a conference winning the championship anyway. So, again, what then really was the point of these lengthy 82-game seasons?
Of course, having a better record entitles a playoff team to have home court/ice advantage in a playoff series. But even this relatively minor perk can be largely removed by the opposing team merely being the first to win a road game. With a view to making the regular season much more meaningful, I propose a simple but radical change in the way in which playoff match-ups are arranged: Let teams choose their own opponents.