At this point, most teams are almost three-quarters of the way through the regular season. Giannis Antetokounmpo and LeBron James have led their respective teams to considerable leads in each conference while the other 28 teams are left to jockey for playoff seeding and better draft lottery odds. The perennial contenders are finding out their crunch time line-ups while the basement dwellers of the NBA have bartered their assets away at the trade deadline and are preparing their salary cap for the offseason.
This season has played host to many interesting storylines as we head towards the postseason: the first that will be played in the wake of the tragedy involving Kobe and Gianna Bryant. While the NBA world continues to mourn, teams are tightening their focus as they prepare to battle through the playoffs, all of whom covet the Larry O’Brien Championship trophy. After looking at the remaining games on the schedule and the distinct rungs on the standings ladder that are up for grabs, I wanted to dissect the most intriguing storylines that lie ahead. There is excitement at every corner in the realistic best-case scenario of how this year’s playoffs play out; what follows are not predictions, but hopes for the most rowdy slate of games leading into an offseason with relatively unexciting draft pools and free agent options (to be fair, it is hard to follow the Zion draft and the craziest NBA offseason in history). Let’s get to it…
The monotony of the 1st round of NBA postseason games could potentially be stymied this year if the standings fall into place a certain way; for both conferences, the excitement of 1st round battles could all hinge on which teams secure their respective 4-seeds. Over this past decade and highlighted by last year’s tank, television viewership of these games have only reflected popularity among the two teams respective media markets. To be fair, it makes sense. Who honestly wants to watch the Milwaukee Bucks sweep whichever team grabs the 8-seed? Who is going to sit down and hope for a good basketball game in the Game 4 of that series? Definitely not the average sports fan…
Which is why the NBA needs to give us Philadelphia-Miami and Houston-Oklahoma City in the first round.
It really doesn’t even come down to the potential of hitting the over on 1.5 brawls during the course of each series. From a basketball perspective, the young guns of Miami and Jimmy Butler playing the cool uncle could easily makes this a seven-game series. Both teams have well-above average home court records (Miami 25-4, Philly 28-2), and each have multiple All-Stars on their roster. These teams have played each other four times with Miami leading 3-1 and winning two close games, one of them in overtime. Philadelphia is also remarkably atrocious on the road, going 9-21 away from Philly.
Brett Brown has taken a beating about how he uses Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid together in 4th quarter situations, and a loss to Miami in the 1st round could ignite the departure of either Brown, Simmons, Tobias Harris, or a promising young prospect like Matisse Thybulle. For Miami, they are at the tail end of a rebuilding process that leaves them plenty of cap space next season and enough in 2021 for two max contract guys… someone like Giannis Antetokounmpo if the stars align and Milwaukee fails to reach or win the NBA Finals in the next two years. The only core piece they will have to deal with in the offseason is veteran guard Goran Dragić. Past that, Butler, Tyler Herro, Duncan Robinson, Bam Adebayo and Kendrick Nunn are all tied to the team next year. We haven’t even mentioned Jimmy Butler wanting to take down the team that decided to pay Ben Simmons and Tobias Harris over him last offseason.
Philadelphia suffered a heartbreaking defeat last year in the Eastern Conference Semifinals when Kawhi Leonard produced one of the best shots in NBA history in the closing seconds to beat Philadelphia in Game 7 and meet Milwaukee in the Eastern Conference Finals. This is a team we thought would be leaving the rest of the East in the dust during the regular season. The Al Horford and Josh Richardson signings have not played out, and now the franchise is tied to Tobias Harris (one of the 5 most un-tradeable contracts in the league) and Ben Simmons. Joel Embiid playing like a top-10 player can answer a lot of the questions NBA pundits have of his team… we’ll see if he’s up to the task during an incredibly important moment in Philly’s franchise history.
The next 1st round tussle is entirely a product of the earthquake-caliber trade the two teams made over the summer. Oklahoma City dealing Russell Westbrook to Houston in return for Chris Paul and a handful of future draft picks (not to mention the club acquiring a similar haul of picks and impact players for their other star, Paul George) shook the NBA world and made it clear that Daryl Morey is not messing around with Harden anymore.
Houston being a game away from making it to the 2018 Finals and probably beating LeBron and his Cavaliers was mostly a result of Chris Paul’s injury early in that series against Golden State. Looking at it that way, the trade makes almost no sense… until you realize what Houston is doing on a nightly basis with their small line-up. Since trading Clint Capela and playing without a true center, Houston has gone 10-2 (including Saturday’s duel with Boston) and boasts an 118.3 offensive rating, 2nd highest in the league during that stretch. Houston’s style of jacking up a ton of threes and letting Harden and Westbrook run the show with a handful of proven wings has them in position to surprise us come the postseason.
Oklahoma City this season has been one of the biggest surprises of the season so far. Vegas set their regular season win total at 32.5, with a lot of action on the under. The Thunder have exceeded expectations going 37-23 with 22 games left! Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has proven to be a top-10 NBA guard and Chris Paul is playing at a very high level at 34 years of age. Oklahoma City is arguably the NBA’s most tortured playoff team this decade, falling victim to LeBron’s first NBA title in 2012 and the 2016 73-9 Warriors after holding a 3-1 lead in the Western Finals. That, coupled with three league MVPs no longer on the roster, you would think the Thunder would be occupying the basement of the West. Now locked and loaded with a feasible roster and enough draft picks to create two new expansion teams, could we see Russell Westbrook kill the Thunder’s chances once again, but on a new team?
Although early 1-8 matchups are usually a breeze and not the most watchable, there is a chance we could get the Los Angeles Lakers and New Orleans Pelicans matched up in the first round for at least four games. We got to see LeBron vs. Zion Williamson debut less than a month ago, with both players putting up great individual performances. The LeBron-Zion spectacle would be amazing no doubt, but the Lakers do not get off scot-free with the rest of their roster. The Pelicans have a team of young bucket-getters, most of whom were involved in the Anthony Davis trade over the summer. There has to some sort of a fire brewing within Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball and Josh Hart.
As for the Lakers… washed-up Avery Bradley (on his 4th team since being traded away from Boston in 2017), Kyle Kuzma (a young, valuable asset more than a basketball player), Markieff Morris (the second of the ball-stopping Morris brothers on an LA team), and Jared Dudley… it’s not the most promising group of names. The Lakers have been able to perform at a high level with the same personnel during the regular season. To be clear, I am not insinuating that the Lakers could fall to New Orleans in the 1st round. What I expect, even if the series ends in 4 or 5 games, is every game to be exciting and more watchable than years past, and could have an effect on the durability and recovery of the Lakers in the following rounds if the Pelicans put up a fight. LeBron is approaching 60,000 career minutes and Anthony Davis has an injury history that cannot be written off.
The problem with this whole take is that the Pelicans have work to do to get there. New Orleans is 2.5 games back of the West’s eight seed. However, they have the 2nd easiest remaining strength of schedule and Memphis, the current occupant of the eight seed, have the most difficult remaining strength of schedule. The Rookie of the Year race, eight seed and this potential first round matchup hang in the balance, will we get the fireworks we deserve?
Whichever way the wind blows in the first two rounds of the playoffs, most would bet on having an all-Los Angeles Western Conference Finals and some combination of Milwaukee, Boston, and Toronto in the East. Prior to the season starting, the NBA world started buzzing about the possibility of Kawhi and Paul George facing off against LeBron and Anthony Davis for a trip to the finals would be the most exciting possible outcome. With the recency of how Kawhi manhandled his way through last year’s playoffs, many would believe the Clippers have the upper hand, and will for years to come if Steve Ballmer’s dream offseason played out the way he hopes. This year is unique.
LeBron is a heavy target for criticism and will always be the face to take blame for whichever team he is on. Anthony Davis got a lot of flack, deservedly-so, for how he forced his way out of New Orleans. LeBron’s ‘Decision’ in 2010 and Davis’s tantrum are two of the most important player-empowerment era moves when evaluating how the scope of the NBA is changing. However, if you are a LeBron hater or are still spiteful of Davis, you may have to throw that all away for a few months. The Los Angeles Lakers winning the NBA Championship this summer in the wake of Kobe and Gianna Bryant’s death would undoubtedly be in the conversation for greatest sports phenomenon of all time. Against the Celtics too? The NBA’s most dynastic rivalry? As both a Celtics fan and sports fan, I’d like to think I’d be able to let one go if it meant LeBron and the Lakers winning a ring in honor of Kobe.
Of course this whole proposal can be easily thrown out the window if a few late season games swing in the opposite direction of what I’m hoping. But I can dream! Please NBA: if you care about television ratings, give us what we want! Whatever you have to do to make it happen let’s see it! It can’t be worse than the Astros!
