NBA division winners are no longer guaranteed home-court advantage for their first-round playoff series under changes announced by the league Tuesday.
Starting with the upcoming season, each conference’s playoff teams will be seeded based strictly on their regular-season record. Under the old format, the three division winners in each conference plus the non-division winner with the best record were awarded the top four seeds.
The tiebreaking procedure also was altered. For teams with the same overall record, the first tiebreaker is now head-to-head record, with the second tiebreaker being whether a team won its division. The order was reversed in previous seasons.
The NBA Board of Governors enacted the changes in a unanimous vote following a unanimous recommendation by the Competition Committee.
Last season, the Northwest Division champion Portland Trail Blazers received the fourth seed in the Western Conference playoffs despite having the conference’s sixth-best record. Under the new format, the Blazers would be seeded sixth, behind both the Memphis Grizzlies and the San Antonio Spurs.