All the sports seem to get along with the systems they use just fine, but for some reason I feel like the NFL is ahead of the pack with their 32 team league. Two conferences, and four divisions each hosting four regional teams. So what would it be like if the NBA and MLB expanded to 32 teams?
Let me start off by saying this thread is going to be strictly figurative. It's more out of my imagination, rather than an actual proposal. Even though I think 32 teams could be possible for both of those leagues in the unpredictable future, it likely isn't happening anytime soon and this thread isn't meant to be a serious thread proposing how it should be done.
With that being said what I am going to do is layout how the teams would look and what divisions they would be in, if they were to be mirrored after how the NFL setup is.
Let's start with the NBA. So for starters we already have to change the conference names, because we're no longer separating by East and West anymore. Let's make it the American Basketball Association (ABA) and keep the National Basketball Association (NBA). And on top of that, we have to add two more teams back into the league. Now to do this I'm going to make it very biased, and I'm going to make it the two cities that I've lived in or near in my life. The first one is Seattle and the second is Pittsburgh. Even though I can never see Pittsburgh ever acquiring a basketball team, in this scenario based entirely off of my imagination they do with the return of the now black and gold Pittsburgh Pipers.
So we'll start with the ABA.
ABA North:
Brooklyn Nets
Philadelphia 76ers
Detroit Pistons
Pittsburgh Pipers
ABA East:
Boston Celtics
Chicago Bulls
Toronto Raports
Orlando Magic
ABA West:
LA Clippers
Denver Nuggets
Sacramento Kings
Portland Trailblazers
ABA South:
OKC Thunder
Dallas Mavericks
New Orleans Pelicans
Phoenix Suns
NBA North:
Cleveland Cavaliers
New York Knicks
Minnesota Timberwolves
Indiana Pacers
NBA East:
Miami Heat
Washington Wizards
Charlotte Hornets
Milwaukee Bucks
NBA West:
Seattle Sonics
Utah Jazz
LA Lakers
Golden State Warriors
NBA South:
Houston Rockets
San Antonio Spurs
Memphis Grizzlies
Atlanta Hawks
I tried to mix some teams up a little bit. I think starting some new good rivalries and changing things up would be really cool. My knowledge of the NBA is a little weak. I don't know all the players, just mostly the big ones. It's my third sport after Football and Baseball. So I don't know if I overpowered some conferences and divisions and made others too weak. I'll probably do a better job with that once I start this baseball one.
Now the good thing with baseball is I don't have to create new conferences for it. We're going to keep it exactly the same, AL and NL. But again we're going to split it up and make a third division. North, South, East, and West will be the our route. However we now have to keep the designated hitter teams into account, so what I'm going to do for the most part is split it up. Two former NL teams and two former AL teams in each division.
And of course, again we will be expanding with two new cities. So what we are going to do is simple. The New Orleans Zephrys will be promoted to the professional level, and the Montreal Expos will return to the league. I'm sure New Orleans could come up with a better name but for now that's what they get. New Orleans deserves another team. And I'm sure nobody could complain about the return of the Expos.
AL North:
New York Yankees
Chicago Cubs
Pittsburgh Pirates
Boston Redsox
AL East:
Chicago White Sox
Baltimore Orioles
Cincinnati Reds
Montreal Expos
AL South:
San Diego Padres
Texas Rangers
Tampa Bay Rays
Arizona Diamondbacks
AL West:
Colorado Rockies
Los Angeles Dodgers
Oakland Athletics
Seattle Mariners
NL North:
Milwaukee Brewers
Toronto Blue Jays
Minnesota Twins
Detroit Tigers
NL South:
Houston Astros
Atlanta Braves
Miami Marlins
New Orleans Zephyrs
NL East:
Philadelphia Phillies
Washington Nationals
Cleveland Indians
New York Mets
NL West:
Kansas City Royals
St. Louis Cardinals
San Francisco Giants
Los Angeles Angels
Now for baseball I'm going to go a little more advance. I'm going to predict who would win these divisions, and ultimately come out as the World Series champ. And here's the twist, now that we have 32 teams that means we will also be adopting the same playoff system as the NFL. It'll still be the same amount of games played, but now the we'll dedicated a whole round to the wild card.
So with the AL North, I think the Pirates would edge out the Yankees, Redsox, and Cubs. Yankees would give them a fight but Pirates would be edge out to be the best in that division. Then in the East, this is an easy one. The Orioles would take the crown back. The other teams didn't even make it last year, and there's no way the poor Expos would be up there in their first new year. For the South, the Rangers take the division but with a record just above .500, and lastly with the West I think the Dodgers win this one. Then the two wild card teams would be the Mariners who actually got 90 wins but the Dodgers got more, and then the A's.
Then for the NL, the Tigers take the division with ease, and the Braves do the same. The Nationals take the crown with the Indians actually giving them a run for a stretch in the season, and the Giants stay on top to win the West, with the Cardinals and Angels making the wild card. Damn I made that division way too overpowered. All four of those teams made the playoffs last year. This time though the Royals fall out of it.
So let me do seeding, just to keep myself organized.
AL:
1. Los Angeles Dodgers
2. Pittsburgh Pirates
3. Baltimore Orioles
4. Texas Rangers
5. Seattle Mariners
6. Oakland A's
NL:
1. Detroit Tigers
2. San Francisco Giants
3. Atlanta Braves
4. Washington Nationals
5. St. Louis Cardinals
6. Los Angeles Angels
Wild Card Round:
Oakland A's vs Baltimore Orioles
Los Angeles Angels vs Atlanta Braves
St. Louis Cardinals vs Washington Nationals
Seattle Mariners vs Texas Rangers
I'm going to shake things up, and I'm going to make the Wild Card a three game set. First team to get two wins moves on. First game is at the higher seed's field, second at the opposing team, and the a tiebreaker again at the higher seed's. So I have the Orioles taking care of the A's. The Angels upsetting Atlanta. The Cardinals going up against the Nats and pulling out a win, and then the Mariners going into Texas and being the only team to win the two games straight.
Divisional Round:
Seattle Mariners vs Los Angeles Dodgers
Los Angeles Angels vs Detroit Tigers
Baltimore Orioles vs Pittsburgh Pirates
St. Louis Cardinals vs San Francisco Giants
Best of five. The Mariners are red hot, and they give the powerhouse Dodgers a run for their money, but the Dodgers make it out alive to win in five games. Then the Tigers go on to sweep the Angels in three games. Baltimore goes up against the Pirates, but Pittsburgh comes out on top in four games, and then the Cardinals upset the powerhouse Giants to knock them out of the playoffs for the first time since 2003.
Championship Round:
St. Louis Cardinals vs Detroit Tigers
Pittsburgh Pirates vs Los Angeles Dodgers
The wildcard Cardinals have been on a roll, but the Tigers are built to win and that they do when they take care of the Cardinals in five games. Then the Pirates go up against the Dodgers, and things get crazy. The Pirates start the series off 2-0, but the Dodgers come back to win four straight games and go onto the world series.
World Series:
Detroit Tigers vs Los Angeles Dodgers
So these two number one seed teams go up against each other in the biggest series of them all. It goes all the way to game 7, extra innings when Joc Pederson hits a walkoff home run to give the Dodgers another World Series win.
Damn...that took forever to type up. Cookies for whoever read all of that. Keep in mind it was all just hypothetical and figurative, and all just my personal and at the moment rusty opinion. It was actually pretty challenging to place all those teams in appropriate divisions. I think it would be really cool to see those two leagues adopt a system similar to the NFL.
I was also thinking the NFL should expand their league too if they wanted to expand the playoff system, but for that to work they would have to expand all the way to 36 teams, or they would have to have uneven divisions. Either way it doesn't work as well as their setup now. I guess five teams in each division and 15 in a conference works smoothly too, but I think we'd see a lot more competition there too. Especially more so in baseball whenever we have good teams missing the playoffs like Seattle, Atlanta, Cleveland, New York Yankees.
Let me start off by saying this thread is going to be strictly figurative. It's more out of my imagination, rather than an actual proposal. Even though I think 32 teams could be possible for both of those leagues in the unpredictable future, it likely isn't happening anytime soon and this thread isn't meant to be a serious thread proposing how it should be done.
With that being said what I am going to do is layout how the teams would look and what divisions they would be in, if they were to be mirrored after how the NFL setup is.
Let's start with the NBA. So for starters we already have to change the conference names, because we're no longer separating by East and West anymore. Let's make it the American Basketball Association (ABA) and keep the National Basketball Association (NBA). And on top of that, we have to add two more teams back into the league. Now to do this I'm going to make it very biased, and I'm going to make it the two cities that I've lived in or near in my life. The first one is Seattle and the second is Pittsburgh. Even though I can never see Pittsburgh ever acquiring a basketball team, in this scenario based entirely off of my imagination they do with the return of the now black and gold Pittsburgh Pipers.
So we'll start with the ABA.
ABA North:
Brooklyn Nets
Philadelphia 76ers
Detroit Pistons
Pittsburgh Pipers
ABA East:
Boston Celtics
Chicago Bulls
Toronto Raports
Orlando Magic
ABA West:
LA Clippers
Denver Nuggets
Sacramento Kings
Portland Trailblazers
ABA South:
OKC Thunder
Dallas Mavericks
New Orleans Pelicans
Phoenix Suns
NBA North:
Cleveland Cavaliers
New York Knicks
Minnesota Timberwolves
Indiana Pacers
NBA East:
Miami Heat
Washington Wizards
Charlotte Hornets
Milwaukee Bucks
NBA West:
Seattle Sonics
Utah Jazz
LA Lakers
Golden State Warriors
NBA South:
Houston Rockets
San Antonio Spurs
Memphis Grizzlies
Atlanta Hawks
I tried to mix some teams up a little bit. I think starting some new good rivalries and changing things up would be really cool. My knowledge of the NBA is a little weak. I don't know all the players, just mostly the big ones. It's my third sport after Football and Baseball. So I don't know if I overpowered some conferences and divisions and made others too weak. I'll probably do a better job with that once I start this baseball one.
Now the good thing with baseball is I don't have to create new conferences for it. We're going to keep it exactly the same, AL and NL. But again we're going to split it up and make a third division. North, South, East, and West will be the our route. However we now have to keep the designated hitter teams into account, so what I'm going to do for the most part is split it up. Two former NL teams and two former AL teams in each division.
And of course, again we will be expanding with two new cities. So what we are going to do is simple. The New Orleans Zephrys will be promoted to the professional level, and the Montreal Expos will return to the league. I'm sure New Orleans could come up with a better name but for now that's what they get. New Orleans deserves another team. And I'm sure nobody could complain about the return of the Expos.
AL North:
New York Yankees
Chicago Cubs
Pittsburgh Pirates
Boston Redsox
AL East:
Chicago White Sox
Baltimore Orioles
Cincinnati Reds
Montreal Expos
AL South:
San Diego Padres
Texas Rangers
Tampa Bay Rays
Arizona Diamondbacks
AL West:
Colorado Rockies
Los Angeles Dodgers
Oakland Athletics
Seattle Mariners
NL North:
Milwaukee Brewers
Toronto Blue Jays
Minnesota Twins
Detroit Tigers
NL South:
Houston Astros
Atlanta Braves
Miami Marlins
New Orleans Zephyrs
NL East:
Philadelphia Phillies
Washington Nationals
Cleveland Indians
New York Mets
NL West:
Kansas City Royals
St. Louis Cardinals
San Francisco Giants
Los Angeles Angels
Now for baseball I'm going to go a little more advance. I'm going to predict who would win these divisions, and ultimately come out as the World Series champ. And here's the twist, now that we have 32 teams that means we will also be adopting the same playoff system as the NFL. It'll still be the same amount of games played, but now the we'll dedicated a whole round to the wild card.
So with the AL North, I think the Pirates would edge out the Yankees, Redsox, and Cubs. Yankees would give them a fight but Pirates would be edge out to be the best in that division. Then in the East, this is an easy one. The Orioles would take the crown back. The other teams didn't even make it last year, and there's no way the poor Expos would be up there in their first new year. For the South, the Rangers take the division but with a record just above .500, and lastly with the West I think the Dodgers win this one. Then the two wild card teams would be the Mariners who actually got 90 wins but the Dodgers got more, and then the A's.
Then for the NL, the Tigers take the division with ease, and the Braves do the same. The Nationals take the crown with the Indians actually giving them a run for a stretch in the season, and the Giants stay on top to win the West, with the Cardinals and Angels making the wild card. Damn I made that division way too overpowered. All four of those teams made the playoffs last year. This time though the Royals fall out of it.
So let me do seeding, just to keep myself organized.
AL:
1. Los Angeles Dodgers
2. Pittsburgh Pirates
3. Baltimore Orioles
4. Texas Rangers
5. Seattle Mariners
6. Oakland A's
NL:
1. Detroit Tigers
2. San Francisco Giants
3. Atlanta Braves
4. Washington Nationals
5. St. Louis Cardinals
6. Los Angeles Angels
Wild Card Round:
Oakland A's vs Baltimore Orioles
Los Angeles Angels vs Atlanta Braves
St. Louis Cardinals vs Washington Nationals
Seattle Mariners vs Texas Rangers
I'm going to shake things up, and I'm going to make the Wild Card a three game set. First team to get two wins moves on. First game is at the higher seed's field, second at the opposing team, and the a tiebreaker again at the higher seed's. So I have the Orioles taking care of the A's. The Angels upsetting Atlanta. The Cardinals going up against the Nats and pulling out a win, and then the Mariners going into Texas and being the only team to win the two games straight.
Divisional Round:
Seattle Mariners vs Los Angeles Dodgers
Los Angeles Angels vs Detroit Tigers
Baltimore Orioles vs Pittsburgh Pirates
St. Louis Cardinals vs San Francisco Giants
Best of five. The Mariners are red hot, and they give the powerhouse Dodgers a run for their money, but the Dodgers make it out alive to win in five games. Then the Tigers go on to sweep the Angels in three games. Baltimore goes up against the Pirates, but Pittsburgh comes out on top in four games, and then the Cardinals upset the powerhouse Giants to knock them out of the playoffs for the first time since 2003.
Championship Round:
St. Louis Cardinals vs Detroit Tigers
Pittsburgh Pirates vs Los Angeles Dodgers
The wildcard Cardinals have been on a roll, but the Tigers are built to win and that they do when they take care of the Cardinals in five games. Then the Pirates go up against the Dodgers, and things get crazy. The Pirates start the series off 2-0, but the Dodgers come back to win four straight games and go onto the world series.
World Series:
Detroit Tigers vs Los Angeles Dodgers
So these two number one seed teams go up against each other in the biggest series of them all. It goes all the way to game 7, extra innings when Joc Pederson hits a walkoff home run to give the Dodgers another World Series win.
Damn...that took forever to type up. Cookies for whoever read all of that. Keep in mind it was all just hypothetical and figurative, and all just my personal and at the moment rusty opinion. It was actually pretty challenging to place all those teams in appropriate divisions. I think it would be really cool to see those two leagues adopt a system similar to the NFL.
I was also thinking the NFL should expand their league too if they wanted to expand the playoff system, but for that to work they would have to expand all the way to 36 teams, or they would have to have uneven divisions. Either way it doesn't work as well as their setup now. I guess five teams in each division and 15 in a conference works smoothly too, but I think we'd see a lot more competition there too. Especially more so in baseball whenever we have good teams missing the playoffs like Seattle, Atlanta, Cleveland, New York Yankees.
