I think I like this.

More incentive for teams to push for a top 2 finish, and if that's out of reach, top 4. Should mean more teams playing harder at the pointy end of the season right and less lollygagging. Improved product overall.

Having given much thought to drawbacks if any.

Surely not? Thats an amazingly awful system

Ok, I may have jumped the gun without fully understanding

3v4 and 5v6 are series or single game playoffs?

Single game.

Ah cool so its really just play-in tourney style until the semis?

i retract my complaint. That seems like a good system.

There's 5 team system I would prefer

Eg
1 through to semi

3 play in games:
2 vs 3- winner through to semi
4 vs 5- winner plays loser of 3v4. Loser out

Loser of 2 vs 3 against winner of 4 vs 5 determines SF opponent

But I prefer this new system to a 4 team system in a 10 team league. Will keep more fans interested for longer. Will give advantage of playoff eve break to top 2 which is deserved. Teams won't go like 16-12 and miss playoffs (on the other hand someone might go 12-16 and make it which is why I prefer 5 not 6 but still this is an improvement for crowd engagement reasons)

Need more teams for a top 6. At this stage it should be top 5 with 4 & 5 playing for 4th spot, then 1 v winner of 4 v 5 & 2 v 3 to get into the grand final.

4 v 5 should be 1 game but I reckon semi's & grand final should be the best of 5 games. This would give the NBL more revenue if that’s what they are looking for with the format that they released

So does it result in less, the same or more games than last season?

Good idea after what happened last season with Tassie almost missing out. Top 5 would've been better than Top 6 but good to see the NBL listening, Top 4 in a 10 team league was not good.

Its 3 play in games.

"There's 5 team system I would prefer

Eg
1 through to semi

3 play in games:
2 vs 3- winner through to semi
4 vs 5- winner plays loser of 3v4. Loser out

Loser of 2 vs 3 against winner of 4 vs 5 determines SF opponent"

I've read this several times and I still don't understand

In the mid-2000s they had a similar system but with a top 8 as there were around 12 teams.

It was 5v8 & 6v7 in knockout games, with the winners playing 3rd & 4th in the second round of knockout games, and the winners meeting 1st & 2nd in the SFs.

In 2009 it was a top 6 because the comp had reduced to 10 teams, with 3v6 and 4v5 playing knockout games and the winners moving onto play 1st & 2nd in the SFs.

This is a very similar format but with a second chance for 3v4. I like it. I think the top 6 is a good size for a 10-team comp (NBA has 20/30), but I like the single games before the SFs.

I think its a good system as teams 3 and 4 need only win one game to make the semis. 5 and 6 need to win 2 straight games

Agreed.

Just open it up to all 10 teams...oh wait that is what the regular season is for. Let's let 60% of the league play finals, why not!

So we're back to it's 'harder to miss the finals than to make it.'
FFS....

So really the comments in this thread really boil down to, do you count the play-in games as the playoffs/post-season, or not.

I'm inclined to see them as an extension of the regular season more than the playoffs. So its therefore really only four teams that make the playoffs.

In what way are they not the playoffs?

Its the playoffs. I believe that is decided based on Perth keeping their playoff streak alive by being eliminated in one of these games years ago

Will be interesting. Not sure it will deliver on "Will keep more fans interested for longer."

There'll only be 3 extra finals' games, presumably played in a week. Two teams will be out after that, so those fans are only engaged for an extra week after the regular season ends.

And the top 6 teams were decided by Round 13 of the 2021-22 season. All that changed between R13 and R21 was where in the top 6 each of those teams finished. The only way you'll keep more fans engaged is if the contest for the last couple of playoff positions is tight. Which is more likely to happen when teams 5/6 both have losing records or break-even records (go back and check the NBL history and you'll see what I mean). Fortunately, that will be most seasons in a 10-team competition.

2021-22 was unusual, in that teams 7-10 were so bad they only won 16% of their combined games against the rest of the league. So teams 5 and 6 collected 19 of their 31 wins against those bottom 4 teams. Complementing that, they ended up with 16 of their 25 losses against the top 4 teams. Hence they both ended up with winning records.

It's likely that future 10-team seasons will see 5th placed teams finish 13-15 as often as they finish 15-13 and rarely finish 16-12. The 6th placed team will usually finish with a losing record. For that not to be the case would mean that a large competitiveness imbalance would have to exist (like this year). i.e., bottom few teams are way worse or top few teams are way better than the rest. Ongoing competitiveness imbalance is not good/engaging for fans of most teams. Think the period of dominance by NZ and Perth during the 2010s.

So this is not about fixing any problem with winning teams missing out on play-offs, as that will not happen often. It'll create a situation with losing teams consistently making play-offs. But that's fine, as I don't think fans of those teams will mind.

The only real down-side is for (fans of) 3rd/4th teams, as they now have to play an extra game or two before semis, and they now have to win at least one of those games to make the semis. i.e., they have to achieve more to make the real play-offs than they did previously, and they have a small increased risk of losing a key player to injury, in getting there.

The play-in system threatens to reward mediocrity but the pay off is it creates a lot of late-season drama. I am on board with this. It's a bit different as well. The NBL is always happy to try something new, and it doesnt take years of procrastinating to make a change, and you cant but applaud the league for its attitude in that regard. They've taken the Cam Luke idea and theyre running with it.

I just find the whole "play-in" thing stupid. It made sense in the COVID-affected NBA season, because the playoff structure was determined prior to the pandemic and the play-in games were an attempt to even up some unfair scheduling that was unavoidable moving into the bubble.

Now? They're just playoff games. Stop calling them anything else.

NBA have never cared about weirdness of some teams making playoffs with crap records, whilst another conference required 50+ wins to make it.

Not a bad playin/off system.

I do think that having 5/10 is best - have 4v5 playing a single elimination final.

Or is that too simple and boring like it has just been tacked on?

That was the system I said late last season I wanted to see the NBL implemented, Top 5 make it with 4 vs 5 single elimination final.

Regardless 6/10 is better than last season's crap 4/10.

4 vs 5 play in would've been simpler and better

It's the same as the nba but instead of 7-10, it’s 3-6 play in, I like it, adds 3 meaningful games to the schedule and adds 2 more elimination games.

NBL hype machine will love it!

For a very very rare time, I agree with KR re NBA play ins for his reasons. Was so painful this season having to hear about will the Lakers make it.
Will they have a lottery system next for bad teams to have a chance to play the teams involved in the play ins?

Love this idea from the NBL!

It was one of my suggestions in the NBL survey.

I always loved when the nbl had top-6 in finals.

I couldn't stand the old top-8 system with the two elimination games to qualifier. At least this system is more fair if you finish 3rd or 4th, it’s only one game if you can win plus the second chance.

I'd been happy with top five, top six is just to easy, more than 50% teams playing finals.

The league is even enough imo that 6 won't pose any issues.

If they expanded the league by 1-2 teams, I don’t want to see the play-in expanded though - keep it as top 6.

I agree keeping top-6 till we go to 13 teams.

I do want to see top-8 quarterfinals back like the nba system. We need 14 teams at least to bring back the top-8 finals system.