re: What's the point of divisions in the NBA?

You play everyone in your division 4 times.

You play another division in your conference 4 times, and the other division in your conference 3 times. That switches each year.

You play everybody in the other conference twice.



Now, division winners also affect playoff seeding and home court.

There are 8 teams that make the playoffs in each conference. The 3 division winners automatically will be seeded in the top 4. The extra team in the top 4 is the team with the best record who did not win a division. The top 4 are ordered by record.

So, for example, the Warriors, Blazers, and Grizzlies can all win their division and be seeded in the top 3, no matter their record. But say the Thunder (who are in the Blazers division) finish with a better record than both the Warriors and Grizzlies, the teams could be seeded:

Blazers
Thunder
Warriors
Grizzlies



Also, the top 4 teams by record get home court. So technically, if the 5th seeded team has a better record than the Grizzlies but got shut out of the top 4 because the "wild card" was the Thunder, the 5th seeded team would get home court when they play the Grizzlies in the playoffs.


So theoretically, if a division is just terrible, and the division winner has the worst record of any of the playoff teams, that team would still be seeded 4th. A division winner cannot be seeded lower than 4th.

I hope that was a clear explanation.