The NBA has 30 teams divided into two conferences (East and West). Each team plays 82 games during the regular season. The top 8 teams in each conference make the playoffs. Each round is a best-of-seven series; the first team to win four games advances to the next round. The finals is a best-of-seven game series between the winners of each conference.
In mid-february, the league holds an all-star game in which the best players from each conference compete against one another. In addition, there are also a few other exhibition games including summer league and pre-season, but these do not count towards the regular season record.
Throughout the years, the NBA has made changes to its rules and regulations in an attempt to improve the quality of the game. For example, in the early 2000s the NBA introduced a three-point line, which was intended to increase the scoring opportunities for small-ball players. The league has also experimented with various types of overtime rules, including an extended clock and more aggressive enforcement of the five-second rule.
NBA players have been known to take a stand on social issues. In 2004, NBA players staged a brief player boycott of the playoffs in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. In a similar vein, the players’ association has supported the legalization of same-sex marriage, and opposes anti-gay legislation.
The NBA draft lottery is an annual event held in the spring to determine the order of the first 14 picks in the draft. The lottery is a public event that is broadcast on national television. Historically, the lottery was conducted using ping-pong balls which were mixed into a tumbler and then drawn by NBA commissioner David Stern one at a time. Since the 2004–05 season, the NBA has used a random number generator to select the first three lottery balls, which decide the order in which the teams choose their picks. The remaining picks are based on regular season record in each conference and, starting with the top three finishers, the division champions of each conference.
After the 2005–06 season, the NBA changed its playoff seeding rules to ensure that the division winners were guaranteed a top-three seed. This change addressed a concern that some had about the previous system, which raised the possibility that the two best teams in each conference could face off against each other in the semifinals.
In addition, the NBA has implemented a series of changes to its playoff format. In 2020, the play-in game was introduced to fill the last few spots in each conference’s playoff bracket. Currently, all playoff rounds are a best-of-seven format and home-court advantage is awarded based on rank. If two teams have the same record, ties are broken by head-to-head record, then inter-conference record. Tiebreakers are then applied as needed.