And, no, I didn't have one too many pierogies, the local delicacy.

This series was so bad the NBA, perhaps prodded by its TV partners, as Commissioner David Stern likes to call them, finally may begin to change the playoff format to produce a more competitive format. In doing so it might also reorganize the league to eliminate the ill-conceived division format and perhaps even the conferences.

If a series falls in the forest and no one sees it, did it happen?

Inter-conference play, here we come.

All the time?

Please. The NBA is broken. It needs repair.

The growing disparity between the conferences in the NBA is obvious, and not because of this Finals' result. This question was brought up to Stern before the Finals began and, as usual, he stubbornly resisted such talk. But he finally did acknowledge it's "a not easy question."

Stern always points to the 1980s and 1990s when the Bulls, Lakers, Celtics and 76ers were dominant and, fortunately for the NBA, the Lakers made a good Finals partner. But the truth is fans just want good matchups and good games, and so what if Seattle and Portland are in the Finals? If Greg Oden and Kevin Durant provided the next Bird-Magic series, who wouldn't want to watch?

The NBA doesn't give fans enough credit for their sophistication.

The NBA's new TV contract with ABC and ESPN is expected to be signed soon, and it will be big because it will include all those portable video things I don't understand but my son does.

So the NBA will make money. But it has to begin worrying about its product. It's not so much that it is bad, but it looks worse with matchups like Spurs-Cavs on its biggest stage. And this East-West thing is getting out of control, especially with Oden and Durant, perhaps the game's next two stars, going west in the upcoming NBA draft.

Since Michael Jordan retired after the 1997-98 season, the West is 7-2 in the NBA Finals, with the Spurs winning four and the Lakers three. And the Mavericks probably should have defeated the Heat last year. Only the Pistons in 2005 made it a seven-game series as the Lakers went 12-3 in their three Finals and the Spurs 16-6 in their four.

That's why the call goes out annually for seeding the playoffs. There have been various proposals over the last several years — and even back in the `80s when the East was dominant —to reseed after each round. That means forgetting the division alignments and rating teams one through 16, regardless of conference.

The East and West could meet early in the playoffs to lead to a better, fairer Finals.

The stumbling blocks such as starting times for TV, cross-country travel and the 2-2-1-1-1 vs. 2-3-2 formats could be overcome.

I love the NBA, but I think it needs a shake-up. It needs to provide some new excitement beyond the occasional great player.

It's not a league for traditionalists — and that's good. There was a new ball this season for a while. There will be again. Zone defenses suddenly showed up. The three-point line came, changed, then went back to where it was. The league would love to widen the court to accommodate the bigger, longer players if it didn't take out so many revenue-producing seats.

One idea I like comes from Bob Fitzgerald, a Warriors broadcaster. He proposes replacing the current six divisions with three conferences, primarily for travel purposes. The idea is to cut some travel in the regular season because the NBA has the biggest disparity of the major sports in home-team advantage, and one of the reasons is the cross-country, crisscrossing travel. By grouping teams by time zone, it would cut that travel some and theoretically produce better regular-season games. I actually like the inter-conference play possibilities because in our worldwide media world, proximity no longer means rivalries. Chicago-Milwaukee? Chicago-Indiana? Who cares?

Chicago-Phoenix? Chicago-San Antonio? I would like to see those matchups more. Chicago-Oden? Definitely.

Fans want to see the best players and the best teams, not necessarily the ones that are closest. With a maximum now of four meetings per season, there are too few games to create true rivalries. So forget the current conferences and open things up.

A new structure would balance competition because so many Eastern teams fatten up their records by playing most of their games within the conference. The payoff for the Western teams would be a playoff system with teams seeded one through 16. If the West has the better teams, as many believe —and some think the Cavs might not have even made the playoffs in the West—then those teams will be the dominant ones through the playoffs.

The NCAA isn't better than the NBA. But what is better about college basketball is its playoff system. So what if Eastern teams are eliminated early?

Does anyone really want to watch a matchup with an Eastern team just because they live in the East? Geography should not be the great determiner. Wouldn't we all rather have just watched the Spurs and Suns? Wouldn't that have been a better showcase?