Starting this season, a division winner is no longer guaranteed a top-four conference seeding in the NBA playoffs.
The NBA Board of Governors unanimously approved the change to the playoff seeding on Tuesday. Teams will now be seeded based on order of regular-season record, 1 through 8. Previously, every division winner was guaranteed a top four seed in its conference regardless of record but did not receive home-court advantage if its playoff opponent had a better record.
The Board of Governors also approved several changes to the tiebreaker criteria for seeding and home-court advantage in the playoffs. Head-to-head results are now the first criterion to break ties between two teams with identical regular-season records. The second criterion is whether a team won its division. Under the previous system, a division winner was awarded the higher seed and home-court advantage.
The approved changes were unanimously recommended by the Competition Committee.
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