Another problem with the NBA, from the college fan's perspective, is that too often one team (or both) is apparently not putting out its full effort. For example, last year the Lakers crushed the Suns in the first two games of their playoff series: 128-107 and 124-112. Then the Lakers turned around and lost two games to the Suns: 118-109 and 115-106. Then the Lakers finished off Phoenix 103-101 and 111-103. After watching Kentucky play nail-biter after nail-biter, it's obvious to any college fan that the Suns probably weren't going all out in those first two games -- and that the Lakers might have coasted a bit in games 3 and 4. Of course, results like this are even more common in the NBA's regular season. Based on such results, many college fans conclude that pro basketball players "don't care" or "don't play defense" or some such thing.
But this is not true. NBA players are amazingly good -- John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins, good is they are, barely made an impression in the league this year -- and they want to win their titles just as much as any athlete. The problem is that decades ago, the NBA adopted one of the silliest schedules of any professional sports league in the world. Given the difficulty of playing basketball at a high level, it would make sense to have a pro season that lasted roughly 40 games (with each game lasting 40 minutes). That's how most European leagues operate. Instead, NBA players have to play 82 games, each of which is 48 minutes long. Most of these games are pretty much meaningless, because 16 of the 30 teams make the playoffs. Then they have to win 16 playoff games to win the title -- and even a lot of these games are meaningless because in the early rounds, there is practically no chance of an upset. (It's virtually impossible for a truly inferior basketball team to beat another four times out of seven). And then the best players are expected to participate in international tournaments like the Olympics.
Faced with such absurd rules, I think it makes perfect sense for NBA players to coast a bit from time to time. If they went all-out on every play, they literally would not make it through the season. So if you truly want to appreciate the NBA playoffs -- and save yourself a lot of time -- you should focus only on the games that really matter. In the Lakers-Suns series mentioned above, for example, the smart fan would have skipped the first four games (which left the series tied at two) and only paid attention to games five and six. Then you would have seen some great action.
So that's what we're going to do here. We will report on the playoffs from time to time, but only to advise you of important games or key developments. To that end, we will start by pointing out that only five teams have any chance to win the playoffs -- the Lakers, the Spurs, the Bulls, the Heat, and the Celtics. This is an unusually high number -- last year, the only teams with a chance were the Lakers, the Celtics, and the Cavaliers. But still, we will pay close attention only to situations where one of our five favored teams is close to being eliminated. That's when the best games will be.
Accordingly, we will say nothing about the first four games of the first round. None of the five teams of interest to us will be swept in the first round -- and in fact, all of them may pretty much have their series under control after four games. We'll check back in at that point.
I wonder if the Rockets made the playoffs. If they did, I might check out one of their games to see Patrick Patterson.
ReplyDeleteThe Rockets missed the playoffs by three games.
ReplyDeleteOK, then I'll follow your cues as to when to dial in.
ReplyDelete