The new playoff seeding would be a good idea, except for the fact that no 16th seed will ever advance to the second round. Take a look at the NCAA tourney going on. In the countless years that it has been going on, no 16th seeded team has ever beaten a #1. If this new layout would take place, the only realistic idea for interesting games would be to cut down the number of playoff teams to 10. This would include 2 wild card rounds (best of 5) to play the best team in each conference in the official first round. The other six teams would be placed accordingly by record and the 1 would play 6, 2 would play 5, and the 3 would play the 4. This year, the playoffs would look like (as of 4/1/08):
Wild Card:
1) Houston 49-24 v. Golden State 45-28
2) Orlando 47-27 v. Dallas 46-28
First Round:
1) Boston 58-15 v. Winner of Wild Card #2
2) New Orleans 50-22 v. Winner of Wild Card #1
3) Detriot 52-21 v. 6) Phoenix 50-24
4) San Antonio 51-23 v. 5) LA Lakers 50-24
Semi-Finals
Winner of 1 v. Winner of 4
Winner of 2 v. Winner of 3
NBA Finals:
Winners of the Semi-Finals games
This would work because it makes all the games more dramatic, and thus interesting. It gives 4 mediocre teams a chance to advance to the next round but doesn't make it a cakewalk for the first seeded team. The final 20 teams in the league will be placed in order of record for the draft, with the worst 10 being put into the same type of lottery that the NBA currently has.