Who can stop Detroit?

Just a thought I haven't heard a lot of elaboration on. Detroit has hardly had to break a sweat, will the Nets or Cavs give them a challenge? I'm not convinced. The way Detroit is looking, I can see them breezing into the Finals. There they'll meet a torn and tattered squad that makes it out of the West (Phoenix to be specific, keeping with my post on Change).

Playing a beat down Western team certainly would help Detroit out, they really could win this thing. Not that there's anything wrong with that...Right?

If this happens we should all rally around the elimination of the conferences and divisions system (for real this time!) for playoff match ups. Everyone plays everyone an equal amount of times, and we seed 1-16 for the playoffs.

From the opposing side of this I've heard that the league likes the current set-up as it contributes to rivalries resulting from geographic closeness and from teams playing each other more frequently.

This reasoning is shaky, rivalries don't happen just because the teams play each other a lot, or because they are roughly in the same area on a map. Exhibit A for this is our Blazers and the Sonics. Our cities are close to each other. We play each other all the time. Yet all I think of when I see "Blazers vs. Sonics" on the game schedule is "Oh, here's one I can miss." Sorry NBA, its true.

The current system doesn't neccessarily manufactor rivalries. The playoffs do. Want to make groups not like each other? Those ingredients include high competition and scarce rewards. The playoffs reward is the Larry O'Brien Trophy, and competition for this one prize is a given. When thinking through the great rivalries, don't most if not all come from classic playoff battles? I wish the NBA would actually take a serious look at this, I've seen enough Blazers vs. Sonics to last a life time.