It’s the Flaw of the West

A funny thing happened on the way to the playoffs.

If you thought this week’s Clipper-Memphis tank-off was a farce, it was only the beginning with the Western Conference draw rearranged by the NBA’s 2-year-old, six-division format.

Stuff happens, but to find another blunder of this proportion by this league, you have to go back to ... to ... I can’t think of one.

The only thing that comes to mind is the night after a Finals game in the ‘70s, when publicist Nick Curran left Major Goolsby’s in Milwaukee without closing out his bar tab and got stuck with a bill about the size of his annual budget.

For the maraschino cherry atop the whipped cream on the sundae, this time the joke is on Dallas owner Mark Cuban, who always claimed the league had it in for him ... and just woke up to find out it’s true.

Cuban’s Mavericks just finished with the No. 3 record in the league, which somehow got them only the No. 4 seeding in the West, putting them on a collision course with the No. 1-seeded San Antonio Spurs in the second round.

This, of course, is a travesty but may at least teach Cuban not to cry wolf. How’s this for your basic joke: In one Western bracket, you have your Nos. 1, 2 and 4 teams, according to their records.

Meanwhile, in the other bracket, you’ve got the No. 3 Suns against three teams out of the bottom four, according to their records.

Yes, while the Spurs and Mavericks figure to be whaling the stuffing out of each other, the Suns -- who finished six games behind the Mavericks -- can reach the Western finals by beating the Lakers and the Clipper-Denver winner.

The problem, of course, was giving the three division winners in each conference the top seedings. Thus, the Suns, who won the Pacific, became the No. 2 seeded team with the third-best record (54-28) and the Nuggets, who won the Northwest, had the eighth-best record (44-38, tied with the Kings, who won the season series) and got No. 3.

Nor can the league say this was a surprise. In the debut for the format last season, the Atlantic Division was under water through Feb. 1 when the Celtics led it at 21-23, raising the possibility a losing team would get the No. 3 seeding.

League officials pooh-poohed the possibility. (You can’t work for the league until you learn how to pooh-pooh anything, from your owners claiming you’re out to get them to the sky actually falling.)

Trotting out their favorite argument, they said to wait because things change. Voila! The Celtics finished with 45 wins so everything, at least, looked OK ...

Until this season, when the Spurs and Mavericks, both in the Southwest Division, ran away with the West. San Antonio and Dallas writers began pointing out the looming disaster at midseason, but the league went into bureaucratic overdrive.

Asked about it All-Star weekend, Commissioner David Stern lateraled it to Deputy Commissioner Russ Granik, who said the competition committee had “substantial reservation ... about whether it really is an issue that has to be addressed any time soon.”

Actually, everyone already knew how to fix it -- a little tweak giving division winners one of the top four seedings and all four ranked by their records.

Apparently convinced it was an issue last week, Stern as much as announced the change, musing, “Maybe we should go to seeding the best four teams by their record.”

Of course, he wasn’t merely musing. It’s likely the competition committee will see it the same way he does because Stern tells it what it thinks.

Of course, that’s next season.

Now Stern, who was outraged when players, coaches and owners claimed to be victims of a league conspiracy, has a system that is conspiring to punish the Mavericks for beating out Phoenix and the No. 5 team for beating out No. 6.

Of course, it wasn’t going to be easy to find a volunteer to finish No. 5, especially with the Clippers playing in Memphis in the next-to-last game.

Memphis star Pau Gasol sat out, although if he was injured, he didn’t know it the day before when he didn’t practice, saying, “I just took the day off to get my legs back and get my knees back.”

Not that it would be that easy. Clipper Coach Mike Dunleavy struck back by benching Chris Kaman (who played the next night) and Sam Cassell, starting Vin Baker at center and playing Elton Brand 22 minutes.

The Grizzlies, headed for Dallas while the Clippers went home to play host to Denver, claimed to be offended -- Coach Mike Fratello said he was proud of his team for its “professionalism” -- but may have just been upset at being out-tanked.

In any case, welcome to the 2006 postseason. It may not be perfect, but it’s the only one we’ve got.