I was looking at the List of NBA Champions and wondering how well high-seeded teams dominate the championship. In the last 20 years (there are 8 seeds in each conference so two 1st seeds, two 2nd seeds, etc.):

1st seed = 10 championships
2nd seed = 5 championships
3rd seed = 5 championships

2004 Detroit Pistons (3)
2005 San Antonio Spurs (2)
2006 Miami Heat (2)
2007 San Antonio Spurs (3)
2008 Boston Celtics (1)
2009 Los Angeles Lakers (1)
2010 Los Angeles Lakers (1)
2011 Dallas Mavericks (3)
2012 Miami Heat (2)
2013 Miami Heat (1)
2014 San Antonio Spurs (1)
2015 Golden State Warriors (1)
2016 Cleveland Cavaliers (1)
2017 Golden State Warriors (1)
2018 Golden State Warriors (2)
2019 Toronto Raptors (2)
2020 Los Angeles Lakers (1)
2021 Milwaukee Bucks (3)
2022 Golden State Warriors (3)
2023 Denver Nuggets (1)

No 4th or lower seed in the last two decades. Looking farther back, Houston Rockets (6) won in 1995 and Boston Celtics (4) in 1969 though 1969 had only four seeds in each of the two divisions.

NBA is quite dominant in top seeds winning the championship and that's fine with me (if you work that hard to be a top seed then you should have a great chance to be champion). The question is what's the point of having more than four seeds? I guess besides money and fan excitement.

But I'm more in favor of less playoff teams, especially when teams already play 80+ games per season. Also, in 20 seasons I'd like one or two 4th seeds to win the championship and maybe cutting it out seeds 5-8 would help that (because in the second round #1 is often a bit more rested having an easy matchup vs #4 which probably had a battle vs #5).