The NBA is the world’s premier professional basketball league and a global sports culture that celebrates the game and the excellence of its players and teams. The NBA – which features the best players from around the world and broadcasts in 212 countries and territories – has built a tradition of thrilling game-changing plays, storied rivalries, personal sagas and championship dynasties. NBA fans connect to the game by reliving iconic moments, embracing their passion for it and sharing in its legacy.
The league’s growth is credited to several factors, including the development of a more expansive roster of talent and a new generation of fans that have come to embrace it in unprecedented numbers. The NBA has also expanded its marketing reach with lucrative media deals, which have doubled the value of each team’s broadcast rights every year since 2002.
With a global presence and unparalleled marketability, the NBA has become a premier sports property and an integral part of our daily lives. The NBA’s success has inspired other sports leagues and has helped to grow the sport of basketball worldwide.
Each season, the NBA awards many different trophies to its stars and teams. The most prestigious is the NBA Most Valuable Player award, given to the player who has the greatest impact on his team’s performance during that season. In addition, the NBA Coach of the Year award is given to the coach whose team has the most positive effect on its overall success and the Sporting News Executive of the Year award is presented to the general manager deemed to have done the best job that season.
Playoffs
The top six teams in each conference, based on winning percentage, directly qualify for the playoffs. If two or more teams have the same record, standard tiebreaker rules are used to determine final rankings.
During the first round, each team plays the lowest seeded team in its respective conference (No. 1 vs. No. 8, No. 2 vs. No. 7, and so on). The winner of each series advances to the next round, where it is paired against the highest-seeded team in its conference. Each of the second-round and third-round series follow a best-of-seven format, with each team playing two games at its home court and one game away.
After the third round, the top four teams from each conference, based on record, advance to the NBA Finals, where they compete against each other in a best-of-seven series to determine the league champion. The winners of the Finals receive the Larry O’Brien Trophy. The NBA also conducts a Draft Lottery each spring to decide the order of selection for the fourteen teams that did not qualify for the playoffs, with the three winning Lotto balls determining the first, second and third picks. The remaining picks are awarded in reverse order of regular-season finish. Teams may move up and down in the draft order through trades. This system was adopted in 2004 after the expansion of the nba to 30 teams.