The globalization of the NBA has made the league the most popular in the world with millions of fans around the globe following everything that is going on around the league. How do standings work in the NBA? All NBA teams, split into two divisions, play 82 games and the top 8 places are automatically guaranteed to take part in the playoffs. At the same time, the best seed of each division is automatically given a place in the post-season. 

So if you ever wondered how do standings work in the NBA? In this article, we will try to explain everything you need to know to understand it.

Brief History/How are the conferences divided?

Since its establishment in 1946, the NBA has constantly grown. Since 2004 there are 30 teams in the league. Those teams based on their geographical location are divided into two conferences – Eastern and Western, each with 15 teams.

Furthermore, the conferences are divided into six divisions, each containing five teams. There are Atlantic, Southeast, and Central divisions in the Eastern Conference and Northwest, Southwest, and Pacific in the Western Conference.

The regular season/How do standings work in the NBA?

Each team plays each division opponent 4 times during the regular season, twice at home and twice away, for a total of 16 games out of 82 total regular-season games.

A team plays against each team from the other two divisions in its conference either three or four times, making the total interdivisional games each team plays – 36.

A team plays each opponent from the other conference in one home game and one away game making a total of 30 interconference games each team plays.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020-21 NBA season was exceptional and each team played 72 games in the regular season.

Usually, the regular season starts at the very end of October and ends in the third week of April. The Playoffs start right after and can last no longer than the third week of June.

The teams in the regular season are ranked based on their win-loss record.

NBA standings include many categories such as “W”, “L”, “PCT”, “GB”, “Home”, “Road”, “DIV”, “CONF”, “PF”, “PA”, “DIFF”, “STRK” and “L10”.

“W” means the number of wins a team has, and “L” is the number of losses. There are no ties in the NBA as every game has a winner, so the win/loss record for a team is the first thing a fan looks at.

What is the meaning of a percentage?

“PCT” is the teams’ win percentage. To determine a win percentage, the number of total games a team has played is divided by the number of their wins. The percentage is useful to compare the teams during the season when they haven’t played the exact number of games at a certain point.

“GB” determines how many games behind first-place a team is.

The next two categories simply show the record a team has when they play at home or on a road.

The “DIV” category shows the team’s record against the teams of its division and the “CONF” category against the teams within the same conference.

The next two categories are the points for “PF” and points against “PA”. This tells us how many points a team is averaging and how many points they are allowing.

The next category “DIFF”, shows the difference between the points scored and points against. A (+) means they are averaging more points than they are giving up, while the (-) means they are getting outscored, on average.

The final two categories in NBA standings, “STRK” and “L10” show how a team has been doing recently. The first is their current streak. So if you see a W3 that means that the team has won their last three games. The final category shows us the team’s record in the last ten games they played.

What happens after the season is finished?

At the end of the regular season, the teams are ranked based on their record. The division champions automatically advance to the playoffs and no division champion can be ranked lower than 4^th position in the conference.

The top eight teams of each conference advance to the playoffs.

The last two seasons were exceptional since there was a play-in tournament for the teams ranked from 7th to 10th spot in the conference.

The play-in tournament involved eight teams, four from each conference that played a total of six games.

The No. 7 team in the standings by winning percentage hosts the No. 8 teams, with the winner earning the No. 7 seed in the playoffs. The losing team gets another chance to earn a playoff spot in the game against the winner of the game between the No. 9 and No. 10 seed. The winner of this match earns the No. 8 seed and makes its way in the playoffs.

The teams that are ranked from 10^th to 15^th place in both conferences do not make the playoffs and go to the draft lottery.

What about the playoffs?

The Playoffs is consists of three best-of-seven rounds in each conference and the NBA Finals.

The first round of the Playoffs sees four matchups in each conference. The first seed faces the 8^th, the 2^nd plays against the 7^th, the 3^rd against the 6^th, and the 4^th against the 5^th. The better-ranked team has the home-court advantage.

In the second round of the playoffs the winner of No.1 vs No.8 series plays the winner of the No. 4 vs No. 5 series while the winner of the No. 2 vs No. 7 series plays the winner of No. 3 vs No.6 series.

The winners of these series advance to the conference finals. The winners of the conference finals advance to the NBA Finals which gives the NBA champion.