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Today, the NBA, and we start with Kirk Goldsberry’s impassioned plea in Grantland to change the playoff system to have the 16 best teams make the playoffs regardless of conference.

Now you may agree with him, and you’re entitled to that, but you’re both wrong, so shut up. Not everything should be fair. Merit shouldn’t guide everything, and in America, let’s be honest, a lot of times it doesn’t. And shouldn’t.

In other words, this is a cry for the Charlotte Hornets of the world, and the Carolina Panthers, and the one All-Star from the Edmonton Oilers, and all the other seeming inequities that dot our sporting landscape.

And here’s why I say this: One, screw whining. You want to play Game 83, win more games. And two, the Golden State Warriors. They spent years -– decades, even, bitching about the tyranny of being in the tougher conference and the curvature and rotation of the earth and how the NBA is being mean to them.

Then they shut up and started acting like a real basketball team that knows what it’s doing and has the confidence to make deals that help and not make deals that don’t. And now they are one of the league’s finest teams (they were the best until they lost to Chicago, and now they kind of blow, as we all understand).

They didn’t snivel about changing the standards. They elevated theirs. They didn’t complain about injustice. They made their own justice, and now in many ways, there’s “just us.” Sorry, Young Goldsberry, but while your heart is in the right place, unfairness is one of the great joys of sport (though not life).

Besides, the prime beneficiary of the Goldsberry Principle this year would probably be Phoenix and its owner, Bob Sarver, and here’s why we don’t need to be fair to him.

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Matt Barnes of the Los Angeles Clippers isn’t done working out his $25,000 fine for getting snippy with Sarver the other night in Phoenix, doubling down on his claim that Sarver baited him and then tattled.

“As players we're obviously held to a higher standard, I've had to watch myself on that, but I think if we're held to high standards, owners should be held to even higher standards,” Barnes said. “When an elder says something derogatory toward me and I respond, I thought it would stay there. It's one grown man saying something to another grown man. I'm not going to run and tell, but the fact that he or someone around him told (the league office) is crazy.”

Barnes says he was also having a bit of verbal handbags with other fans as well, but steadfastly claims Sarver was the instigator, despite the league siding with the owner instead of a mere employee.

“You can ask him what he said,” Barnes said. “He said enough to make me respond. We don't like each other. He didn't like me when I was there (2008-09) and I didn't like him when I was there, so it is what it is. He's said some stuff about me before that fueled a few of my old teammates that were there from the Clippers. I've never liked him and as soon as he said that to me, it got me going, but if players are held to a high standard, owners should be held to an even higher standard.”

Now a word to Barnes: If you’re going to wish for the impossible, wish to hit the lottery three weeks in a row. I mean, your chances of either are the same, so why not go big?

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Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather have met again to talk about a potential fight, and though we have no hope that either of them has said, “Of course, you know this whole thing is wrong,” at least we can hope with some chance of success that they said something along the lines of, “Can you believe people will spend this kind of money to watch Ricky Ricardo fighting Fred Mertz?”

Yes, it’s a badly dated reference, but this is a badly postdated fight.

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And now today’s let’s-enrage-the-boss item. The Copa Del Rey match between Barcelona and Atletico Madrid was over at halftime. Not because Barca won, 3-2, or because Atleti’s Gabi was red-carded during halftime, but because teammate Arda Turan came out out of the tunnel before the second half and threw his shoe linesman after an apparent foul was uncalled. He flung it about five feet over the linesman’s head, and got a yellow card for it. A yellow. Because his aim was bad, or he wasn’t wearing five-inch pumps, or because Spain.

Yay sports.

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And finally, we all know that Katy Perry is performing during the Super Bowl halftime show, and that she will be bringing her breasts on stage with her because, well, that’s how it works. But, and here is where it gets stupid, there is now a prop bet (courtesy the weasels at BetOnline) on how much of her front she will be exposing to sunlight. In other words, Perry showing cleavage is minus-500. Full coverage is plus-350.

So, a question: Define “full” cleavage.

And now a statement. I hate us.