How playoff seedings work

I believe the first tiebreaker is always a division champ over a non-division champ. Pretty sure this has never come into play since the league changed how 1-4 is seeded. It would only effect the third and fourth seed, and they would have to have a tied record.

Seeding was initially changed a couple years ago to prevent scenarios where a clear #2 in the conference was also in the same division as the #1, but would be seeded at #4 because of the other division champs. They kept the division champ tiebreak in to leave at least a little reason to win your division, as it really doesn’t matter at all, unless you are tied like the scenario we currently might have, or the team has a worse record than the #5 seed but would still be seeded #4.

If all three teams end up with the same record it doesn’t really change that much. #2 and #3 would be seeded as normal, first based on head-to-head then the other tiebreakers, since they would both be division champs. So, in the example with the Spurs/Nuggs/Rockets all having a tied record, it would be #2 Nuggs, and the Spurs and Rockets being #3 and #4 based on conference record. In reality, the Nuggs have the tiebreak over both the Rockets and Spurs, though for different reasons.

Thinking about it a little more, it’s a lot more complicated, and I could be wrong about how the seeds would go given a three way tie. Assuming that both the Rockets and Spurs would be considered “division champs” being tied for the SW division lead, it would actually be #2 Rockets, #3 Nuggets, and #4 Spurs since the Rockets have the head-to-head tiebreak over the Nuggs. If neither the Spurs or Rockets are “division champs”, since neither outright won, it would go per my previous post.

What’s really weird, is if they have to go to the Spurs/Rockets tiebreakers further down the list to determine a division champ. The Nuggets seeding as #2 or #3 would be determined by the division record of two teams that aren’t in their division.