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Races for crummy playoff seeds always existed. More importantly, very good basketball teams are often in races for crummy playoff seeds, either due to injury, intrigue, or repeated denied applications for entry into the Eastern Conference. Limping defending-champions are no strangers to these rungs, nor are top-heavy Western outfits hung with ill-fits. There’s always a Dallas, a Golden State, a Portland. Sometimes Cuttino Mobley is there, sometimes he isn’t.
The difference in 2020-21 is the first-year novelty of the play-in. Last year’s bubble debut didn’t feel official, this similarly hamstrung campaign somehow scans as orthodox by comparison.
Next season, 2021-22, is when things truly return. And, just as was necessary during a pandemic, it would be nice to see the NBA make some severe cuts.
Kelly has suggestions. Beyond adding Cuttino Mobley.
THE PLAY-IN STAYS
NBA teams are really,
really
really
good.
There will be times when the Eastern play-in bracket is filled with Suckwadian outfits, but this is not the season. The West routinely fills the middling spots with supremely playoff-quality clubs.
The idea that the NBA considers two-thirds its rosters postseason-caliber makes no sense at first blush, but a trip to the agate argues otherwise. Russell Westbrook delights in Washington, Golden State, Portland and Memphis performed all season as proper playoff teams. The Rockets are bad, the Thunder are bad, but the Pelicans (who play better defense now), Pacers and Spurs, I assure you, are not bad.
The NBA runs two-thirds deep. Three of its best players came directly from professional competition overseas, so imagine what the rest of the roster looks like. Additionally, Duke, Kansas and Kentucky haven’t stopped producing MVP candidates. This pipeline is weightier than ever yet the NBA hasn’t added a team since 2004. Back when its least-liked coaching avatars were still two years into the four-year run of refusing to take international competition seriously.
The NBA wants us to take its 21st and 22nd teams seriously and I, for one, am way ahead of them.
Yet the NBA can’t keep this up. Too many games that count.
The season has to eliminate contests, somehow, in ways that wouldn’t shift stakes toward a tournament ending on Christmas Day (sports fans do not have the capability to care enough about pro basketball during the peak gridiron season), and without forcing the players and owners to give cash back.
There is no letup, in the 82-plus play-in scenario, which is exhausting for at least two-thirds of that two-thirds. Teams of all percentages were used to taking little breaks inside that 16-seed setup, familiar spots in the October-to-April calendar they could anticipate and pace themselves through. The play-in traipses on this in ways which cannot be blamed on the rush of pandemic scheduling.
The answer isn’t to excise the compelling and rewarding thing, no matter how much LeBron kvetches. The answer is to create a more reverent schedule, something appropriate for the arc of competition. The answer is not adding more weeks, the NBA needs to cut the amount of games it plays. Phoenix does not need to be in Cleveland on Tuesday. Detroit does not need to host Charlotte a second time in a season.
And idc what Chris Paul meant to Trae Young growing up, there is no need for Phoenix to be in Atlanta on Wednesday.
You know who would be fun to watch in Atlanta on Wednesday? Miami. Charlotte. Washington. The Magic. You know who should be in Cleveland on Tuesday? A similarly-shyte division opponent, in a league that still counts divisions for some form of credit.
Fewer games means better basketball which eventually results in a product featuring greater teeth to lug to market. Start doing your job, empty suits. Figure the future out.
HALFTIME
In a clip from 1980 Bill Russell and his suit from 1967 introduce a feature on referee Darrell Garretson. They’re trying to tell me that Garretson’s job is hard, but really all he had to do was learn Darryl Dawkins’ uniform number.
This video is 3:33. Foreshadowing.
Referee reviews take too long, the ends of close contests should not be this demanding to view. There is no reason NBA referee reviews cannot have a time limit.
The playoffs are soon, mainstream sports fans by the millions are about to re-introduce themselves to the NBA’s 52-minute fourth quarters and for absolutely nothing but paperwork on a Friday afternoon.
It can wait until Monday. Limit each review to a minute. If a correction isn’t agreed upon in time, the original call holds.
NBA, babe, you’re selling me an entertainment product and the product takes too long to get here. I am Dennis Miller in 1989 and I will always tell funny jokes.
NOT AS MANY THREES
It absolutely does not bug me that teams shoot as many three-pointers now, your attitude changes once you re-consider three-pointers as the same space-defying 16-footers Bobby Dandridge used to hit. Alternately, the coded language which clotted the NBA’s slower seasons still rings in these ears, non-fans whose eyesight precluded them from recognizing that even the worst shooters on the 2000-01 Philadelphia 76ers were far more accurate on jumpers than the best on any classic club from your gloriest year.
So, I’m cranky. I see every one of these 24-foot splashes as a thumb in the nose of the jamokes that told me none of these dribblers could stroke.
But it is the future, 2021, and pretending this rebellion ends with the Clippers (41.7 percent on three-pointers in 2021) or Utah (43.3 three-point attempts per game) is to deny the inevitable. The NBA has a fundamentals problem, there are far too many of them, it has to stop.
The kids are only going to get worse with these things — elbow under the ball, brushing before bedtime — teams will have no choice but to rely more and more on the attempt that earns them a comparatively disproportionate amount of points. So, yeah, I think they should limit three-pointers.
To 33. Teams only gets 33 a night, nothing cute with quarters or the last two minutes or bonuses or anything like that, 33.
The scarcity (only ten teams shoot fewer than 33 three-pointers per game, three clubs attempt over 40) adds to the intrigue. Doc Rivers may not want Joel Embiid using six of his team’s 33 before halftime, and I can already hear a fearful “remember, the Lakers only have two three-point attempts remaining” in Mike Breen’s tremulous voice.
Better yet, imagine someone’s shaky shooting elbow as they step-in from the three-point line to attempt a two-pointer with no threes remaining, a tie in the balance, a buzzer about to ring. A showy heave for the three-point win suddenly morphs back into a nervous two-point jumper that you’re supposed to nail.
Eight three-pointers per quarter, you little babies, will be enough. Points per possession will go down, but scoring (as the league pushes to run more and more to secure easy twos) won’t crater. Transition work will be crucial, outlet passes will abound.
Also,
GUILLOTINE FOR FAST-BREAK DENIERS
Zach Lowe touched on this last week, the penalty begs reassessment. Larry Brown rode intentional fouling on fast-breaks all the way to a gig as 2004 Olympic coach, the league suffered untold transition casualties in the years since. How many literal hundreds of fast-break slams and jams did we miss out on because of fouls at half-court? Fucking war crimes, man.
Amp up the penalties on bear hugs in transition. The NBA’s minor league already awards a technical free throw and the ball back to the team hacked on a break, which is weaksauce (with an additional $1.50 charge for two extra ramekins of weaksauce). The fouling team still gets to play defense against a field goal attempt, the things that count for three and two points. That free throw means NOTHING to these savages.
Will the punishment I’ve settled upon cost the Milwaukee Bucks some depth in the postseason? Surely.
The return will be worth it. We’ve already missed out on too many slam-jams.
MORNING SUNRISE
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The NBA is too good for its old numbers