So after a historically great first round and a somewhat “meh” second round, we’ve got exactly the matchups most people would’ve predicted: Heat vs. Pacers, Spurs vs. Thunder. The Heat and Spurs have to be significant favorites because the Pacers have been so iffy (and the Heat so good) for most of the playoffs, and the Spurs should be at full strength while the Thunder won’t have Serge Ibaka.
Well, I honestly wasn’t sure whether the Pacers would win even a single game, so we’re off to a good start competitiveness-wise in the semis.
Saw a little blurb today - no team LeBron has been on has ever won a game 1 on the road. 0-7. While he’s been with the Heat they’ve gone 0-2 in those game 1s and then 8-0 the rest of those series. Es.
Even though the Pacers are up 1-0 at the moment, I’m certain we’re going to end up with YAWN yet another Spurs-Heat Finals.
The problem as I see it, is the way the league is structured, draft-wise. Hear me out here: The East, save for the questionably-colluded Miami Heat, is unquestionably weak. The West, OTOH, is unquestionable strong. Ideally, the strong and weak teams should be equally distributed between both conferences, but they are not. The West is the dominant Conference, and The East is, again, save for Miami, weak, and this trend will continue indefinitely because, as I see it, of the way The League and The Draft is structured.
Hear me out here: think about it: as long as The East remains weak and The West remains strong, The West will continue to get stronger and The East will continue to get weaker, no matter how the ping-pong balls fall, because the non-playoff teams in the West, were they in The East, would easily make the playoffs, and therefore end up *outside *The Lottery. But because they do not make the playoffs they are eligible for The Lottery, and through those high draft picks they continue improve, and in doing so, continue the trend of improving The West, which takes those high draft picks away from The East, which ultimately weakens The East.
So, the way I see it, the only way to balance The Conferences at this point is to ignore Conference affiliation and award Lottery slots not merely to the 14 non-playoff teams, but to the 14 worst teams, by record, in The League as a whole, regardless of whether they qualified for The Playoffs or not.
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Am I wrong?!
I like your logic, DCnDC. I think your idea works best if players that are selected (drafted) from the middle to the end of the first round have tended to, on average, outperform during their NBA career, relative to their draft position, when compared to players chosen at at the start of the first round. (The Eastern teams that made the playoffs this year, but wouldn’t have under your proposed scheme, would tend to get picks in the bottom half of the first round).
I’d have to check Bill Simmons’ analyses, but I have the feeling that this is indeed the case.
I caught a bit of the Miami-Indiana game on Sunday and I noticed that they were wearing uniform patterns (solid red and solid yellow) that aren’t shown on their Wikipedia pages. Are there special uniforms for the playoffs?
Noticed over at BBreference that Duncan came in 9th in defensive win-shares for the season with a 4.6, which is a damned impressive number for a player born in 1976. I think the next oldest player in the top 10 is 9 years younger than Tim.
If Indiana and the Spurs make it to the next round, 8 of the top 20 defensive players in the league (by defensive rating) will be playing in the Finals this year. A great thing for bball purists, but the broadcasting network is probably lighting up offerings to Satan and his minions to prevent that from happening - a Durant v. Lebron series is easy to sell and market, a Kawhi vs Hibbert matchup… eh, not so much. 
Cavs get the #1 pick again.
That’s so fucking awesome.
Who is the next LeBron for Cleveland?
What is Bill Simmons literally ever talking about?
If he was talking about karma, he’s referring to a column he wrote on Grantland today.
Third LeBron’s the charm, right?
Well, you could win The Lottery every year, but you still have to not fuck it up and not pick Kwame Brown.
You mean Anthony Bennet. I don’t think even the Cavs could fuck this one up though.
The book’s not been written yet on Bennett, and it’s too early to decide who’s the heads-above player(s) to emerge from that group just yet, so I went with Kwame Brown, who was a colossal bust by any measure. Olowokandi would have fit as well.
The cracks about the Cavs taking Anthony Bennett have gotten pretty stale.
Tell me what can’t-miss player on this list they should have taken instead. Gorgui Dieng?
Pretty much everyone from 2 to 15 would have been better.
Bullshit.
It’s possible Bennett will get better with his health problems behind him, assuming they are behind him. But his season was a disaster. The Cavs’ entire season was a disaster since they were expected to compete for a playoff spot and the conference was terrible. And Bennett was a big surprise #1 pick, so let’s not act like he was the consensus choice and nobody had any other ideas. Nerlens Noel was talked up a lot, and yes, it would’ve sucked for them if he’d missed most of the season. But people still think he’ll be a force on defense. Oladipo shot badly but he has a lot of potential. I saw some people suggest Alex Len could’ve gone #1 and he wasn’t any more impressive than Bennett. But Ben McLemore has potential, too. I suppose Cleveland wouldn’t have picked Burke or McCollum since they already have Irving.
All I’m saying is that it was a weak draft, and the notion there was a clearly superior player to be taken #1 that the Cavs disregarded to grab obvious bust Bennett is not only nonsense, but even with the benefit of hindsight there’s no player that stands out as the one the Cavs should have taken. It was that bad of a draft class.