As the regular season slowly withers to a husk, it is worth revisiting the age-old question: what is the meaning of the regular season? This question has gained new urgency in the wake of the Bucks’ first championship in five decades.
Functionally, the regular season determines which teams make the playoffs and the seeding of those teams. Better seeds enjoy the fruits of home-court advantage and playing relatively worse-off teams in the early rounds. The regular season is also a laboratory where teams can experiment with new players and new schemes. This experimentation can be maximized when teams have a baseline level of quality that assures that they will make the playoffs (or, in contrast, that they will not make the playoffs).