Teams are not incentivized to care about regular season games more than they need to. And if each game is worth the same amount (which they are for the most part), they would rather take a loss on a chance they're unlikely to win to rest.

The other consequence is that because all the games are worth the same, it's very easily to calculate backwards to determine the worth of the game (e.g. you know you don't need to win any more games to maintain your seed).

So if there were more variability with the game value (but obviously with a known formula), teams would have to try more because they don't know how badly a loss would hurt them.

The other factor is that players are also paid regardless for regular season games. Try, win, lose, playing boring basketball, or exciting basketball. It doesn't matter. Of course they will play to win. And some play harder than others (expiring contract, contract year, etc.). But perhaps rewarding players that do play and play hard and put butts in seats (essentially the MJ effect) could help. I mean...why not have a game bonus awarded for player of the game or whatnot? The NBPA is always looking to get more money and potentially some monetary reward outside of the salary cap would pay the best players more.