I know it is way early in the season but looking at the standings today made me think. It seems every team is beating every team and the league is more balanced this year. But looking at the standings the Rockets are in first place in divisional race but only the 6th seed in playoffs. No other team in our division is technically in playoffs at this point and we are only in playoffs by one game. I googled and couldn't find the answer I was looking for. I assume that winning your respective division gets you a playoff seed but I don't know for sure. My question is if at the end of the season if all the teams in a division finish with a worse record then the 8th seed does the division leader get a playoff seed by default or not?
They could all miss the playoffs. Winning a divison doesn't matter at all anymore. Or like 3-4 years ago when all of divison made the playoffs.
It would be pretty amazing to see a division leader miss the playoffs. I doubt that has happened yet?
I think the only benefit it would serve would be for a tiebreaker scenario, although hypothetically the rule is applied to the better division record between two tied teams and the division winner would obviously have the better mark in that category.
