NBA: Unexpected First Round Results Creates Opportunity For History
Playoff changing of guard could have four new teams in Conference Finals
Half of the conference finalists in the NBA’s bubble postseason last fall have dropped like memes of Rajon Rondo firing eye-daggers toward Kawhi Leonard.
Following the ignominious playoff returns of Miami and Boston, another will likely soon follow as neither the Los Angeles Lakers or Denver Nuggets look to match their success in the self-contained Orlando experiment.
What’s normally been a generational phenomenon could very well wind up as the cherry on top of another kooky NBA season.
I have my eyes peeled.
And so should you.
Something special is in progress.
It started with Jimmy Butler and the Heat being tossed aside like the common sense of four-too-many spectators of postseason basketball.
Then the Celtics and Jayson Tatum, who fought like hell to stay upright against the combustible three-man weave from Brooklyn, were inevitably smoked.
Nikola Jokić and the Nuggets have survived Damian Lillard and the relentless Trailblazers, for the moment. But LeBron James and the defending champion Lakers’ bid to repeat is down to the last threads of Anthony Davis’ connective tissue.
It’s been a wildly entertaining return to what playoff basketball was like before crowd noise had to be plugged in and players needed to be kept an arm’s length away from each other on the sidelines. (And to think, the spark that ignited much of the excitement stemmed from the polarizing concept of a play-in tournament).
Even wilder is that, with the Heat and Celtics already gone ‘til October and the Nuggets and Lakers’ playoff lives not promised through this weekend, there’s a chance that all four teams vying for the right to represent their respective conference in next month’s Finals will be new representatives from just last season.
All four!
Wholesale changes like that don’t happen often. In fact—whether attributable to a previously shallow pool of talent, tug-of-wars between old and new guards or more of today’s stars being in cahoots—it had only happened twice before last year’s unprecedented campaign (1977 and 2011).
With a compact schedule that led to a short supply of on-court practices, the lack of summer league exhibitions and a once-raging pandemic that, at one point, forced 32 games to be postponed, this season hasn’t exactly been cut-and-dry either. To that extent, perhaps the fixings for history to repeat itself so suddenly have been stewing all along.
(Looking back, the Jazz and Suns making themselves at home atop the Western Conference standings should’ve been the first sign that something refreshingly charming was afoot).
For Nets, Sixers, Bucks, Suns, Jazz, Mavs, Blazers, Clippers, Hawks, and even Nuggets fans—who, together, have seen their teams capture 10 fewer titles than both the Lakers and Celtics—it’s an appetizing recipe.
And while the heat-and-serve trifecta of James Harden, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant make Brooklyn the prohibitive paper champion, it’s the Jazz (45 percent) and Bucks (15%) who, as of this writing, possess the best chance of holding Larry O’Brien’s trophy when it’s all said and done, according to The Ringer’s NBA Odds Machine. Take their algorithm “based on team strength as measured by point differential...” for what it’s worth.
But trust me when I say a healthy chunk of my attention will be on the Mile High City’s presumptive MVP, Father Time’s purple and gold fugitive, and their efforts to stay untangled from history.
Drew Stevens is a Senior Writer for WARR Media, he lives and works in Chicago