The NBA’s playoff system is broken.

The players know it. The coaches know it. The owners know it. The league’s commissioner knows it too.

And the solution to the problem isn’t in eliminating divisions or conferences. No, no, no — the answer to the NBA’s big question is much simpler than that, and it can be found in a hockey minor league.

Over the weekend, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in his annual “state of the Association” press conference that his office was looking into ways to revamp the league’s playoffs, either by removing the current East-West paradigm or seeding all 16 qualifiers in one tournament.

Silver’s hope is that by changing the seedings or by allowing the 16 best teams — regardless of conference — to qualify for the playoffs, the NBA’s overall product (regular and post-season) will improve.

But it won’t, because the proposed changes provide little (if any) additional incentive to the true title-contending teams, of which there are a handful (at most) every year. Think about it: If you’re the Warriors, is there really a difference between playing Detroit or New Orleans in the first round?

Of course not.

And, as such, superstar rest and perfunctory efforts — byproducts of a regular season that’s too long (don’t expect that to change) — will continue, even if the floated changes are enacted.

But there is a no-nonsense, easy-to-understand, and even-easier-to-enact way to change the NBA’s postseason so that it would incentivize teams to play hard in the regular season — just follow the lead of the Southern Professional Hockey League.

Jim Combs knew instantaneously that he had come across a brilliant, game-changing idea.

“I almost fell off the chair,” Combs, the SPHL president, told me by phone Tuesday. “I said ‘we are absolutely doing this’”

“This” is the concept of having top-seeded teams select their first-round playoff opponents.

The idea was relayed to Combs over dinner this summer by the COO of the Austrian professional hockey league — which already lets its top teams pick their first-round opponents.

Combs acted immediately upon hearing the idea, putting forward the concept at the league’s board of governors meeting just a few days later. The measure passed, and this year, the SPHL will allow top-seeded teams to select their first-round playoff opponents.

The practice is simple in the SPHL and it could be applied to the NBA immediately: Of the eight playoff teams, the top-seeded team gets to select its first-round opponent, the No. 2 seed gets to pick its opponent from the remaining teams in the pool, and the third team gets the last pick, leaving the fourth seed to play the only remaining team.

Straightforward, right?

Now, one might presume the matchups would remain the same — the No. 1 seed would select the team with the worst record, the No. 8 seed, and so forth.

Perhaps, but that might not be the case. And that’s where things get fun.

Maybe the No. 1 seed prefers the matchup against the No. 6 seed and would rather play one in the first round. That’s plausible, no?

Or perhaps the No. 8 seed was on a hot streak to end the regular season and the No. 7 seed is a team that limped into the postseason, making them the more desirable team to play.

Or maybe the top seed would simply prefer to not travel much in the first round, leaving them to pick the team that’s closest in proximity.

No matter what the reason, the No. 1 seed should earn the right to dictate its first-round playoff matchup, whatever that might be.

There would be strategy and a bit of gamesmanship to the playoff matchup selection — the only time those terms have applied to the current playoff structure is when a team deliberately loses as to avoid a tough first-round matchup.

Currently, the only advantage to being the top seed in the NBA (or NHL) playoffs is home-court advantage. Is that enough of an advantage to encourage a team to play hard and fight for the top seed all season? The LeBron James-led Cavaliers would certainly say “no” and the 2017-18 Warriors might agree with them.

But getting to select your first-round opponent? Being able to, in a way, build the playoff bracket? That’s incredible control — and that’s certainly worth a fight. (Plus it maintains the current home-court advantage system.)

Not only would allowing top-seeded teams to pick their first-round opponents make the NBA regular season more interesting — lest you slack and not have a pick — it would also add much-needed life to the increasingly dull first round of the playoffs.

How hard do you think the seventh-seeded Blazers would play in the first round if the top-seeded Warriors (or Rockets…) selected them as their matchup, eschewing the typical 1-8 series?

I’d bet Portland would find some extra juice, and that might be enough to make what are typically lopsided series interesting.

And talk about a great way to create or spice up a rivalry: Who needs to wait for bulletin-board material when it’s built into the playoff matchup in this system?

The NBA is already the sports world’s best soap opera thanks to an incredible cast of characters and a surprising amount of pettiness — this new system would further tap into both of those incredible resources.

And, Commissioner Silver, if you’re reading this: think of the TV money this system could create.

Combs is turning his league’s first-ever “Challenge Round” selections into a made-for-TV event: Teams will hold watch parties and he will announce the first-round matchups live, not knowing which teams were picked until he opens the announcements, a la the Oscars, the NBA Draft Lottery, or NCAA’s Selection Sunday.

This event, done by a regional hockey league, is, of course, much bigger than all of those things combined…

And Combs is getting so much interest in his league’s new playoff system that there is talk of internationally broadcasting the selections.

Could you imagine the viewership for an NBA version of that event? I can already see Charles Barkley and Shaq roasting the selections in real time on the TNT set. What a show that would be.

Some might look at this as a gimmick — a lame trope by a regional hockey league to drum up some publicity. I’m sure those people would have said the same thing when the SPHL was the first North American league to try 3-on-3 overtime more than a decade ago. In 2015-16, the NHL implemented 3-on-3 and it’s been a rousing hit and helped mitigate the league’s problem of too many games being decided by a shootout.

It looks like the SPHL has come up with another golden solution to a serious problem in sports.

“Sometimes the answers are so easy that it’s easy to dismiss,” Combs said. “[But] In my opinion, in five years, every sport is doing this.”

One can only hope.