Southeast Division

The Southeast Division holds place as one of three divisions in the Eastern Conference of the NBA. The Southeast Division belongs to a total of six divisions in the National Basketball Association. Five teams play in this division. They are the Atlanta Hawks, the Charlotte Bobcats, the Miami Heat, the Orlando Magic, and the Washington Wizards. In 2003, the National Basketball Association approved a realignment that created the six divisions in order to bring in the Charlotte Bobcats. The Washington Wizards, Orlando Magic and Miami teams originally held positions in the Atlantic Division. The Atlanta Hawks came from the Central Division.

The teams in the Southeast Division compete against each other for the division's championship. The regular season schedule consists of eighty-two games. The league separates the games into forty-one home games and forty-one away games. Each team plays two home games and two away games against every team in their division. After, they play against the other teams inside their conference at least three to four times each before they face the opponents outside their conference. They do this in preparation for the playoffs, where the winning teams play against each other for the National Basketball Association Championship. According to the new rules, the NBA home court advantage in the playoffs relied on regular season records. Some fans claim that the new system is better, though flawed. Others wonder why the National Basketball Association needs more than two divisions.

The Miami Heat basketball team won the Southeast Division championships three seasons in a row, from 2005-2007. The 2007 win came after a year of constant injuries and havoc. This makes them the only team to win their division's titles thus far. Some fans and players insist that their first win came about because Maimi Heat added a player by the name of Shaquille (Shaq) O'Neal. Shaq is among the tallest basketball players in the world.

In the 2006 season drafts, the Maimi Heat chose to stick with Shaquille O'Neal. The Washington Wizards brought in Oleksiy Pecherov from Ukraine and Vladimir Veremeenko from Belarus. Orlando Magic drafted J. J. Redick of Duke and James Augustine from Illinois. The Charlotte Bobcats made a good choice with players Adam Morrison from Gonzaga and Ryan Hollins of UCLA. The Atlanta Hawks kept their promise to bring in Shelden Williams of Duke and signed on Solomon Jones of South Florida.

As the 2006-2007 season comes to a close, teams prepared for the next round in 2008.