The West wuz like this before

Looking at the best of the West to miss the playoffs

A 45-37 record likely guarantees an Eastern Conference team a 2025 playoff spot and No. 6 seed, a berth currently held by the 11-11 Atlanta Hawks. Possibly the fifth seed, a position helmed by the 10-9 Bucks.

The same record will barely be enough to earn a Play-In bid out West, where San Antonio holds an 11-9 record but only the No. 10 seed.

The East/West disparity, it is is wide. The gulf, teeming, but that’s what we have the Play-In for. To squeeze an evening’s worth of entertaining basketball out of two mediocre clubs, condensing the healthiest and bestest and brightest of the league’s lower ranks.

The NBA didn’t used to do that, it just used to send teams home. Great teams sporting Western themes, with far inferior clubs carrying on in the other bracket.

The league created its 16-team playoff in time for 1983-84, the season David Stern became commissioner, the season Stern inked a two-year, $20 million deal with Turner Sports for broadcast rights.

This is the same money Al Horford signed to in 2023 to be the sixth-highest paid player on the Celtics. Modern players working under approximately the same contract in 2024-25 and 2025-26: Keegan Murray, Mike Conley, Royce O’Neale, Scoot Henderson.

The extra round was agreed upon the year before in labor negotiations. The NBA and its players avoided a strike in 1983, creating a collective bargaining agreement the New York Times regarded the envy of other, bickering, pro sports leagues:

The most startling aspect of the statesmanlike settlement in basketball, one of the most innovative in any area of labor management relations, is that it comes out of a sport that has worked overtime to establish a reputation for zaniness and mismanagement. Indeed, it almost certainly never would have come as peacefully as it did had the basketball owners not got some of their clubs so far out toward bankruptcy by recklessly competing for superstars. They needed the lifeline the players have now given them in a contract that should work to the long-term benefit of both sides.

What the accord does is to establish 53 percent of the owners' total take from gate receipts, television, cable, radio and playoffs as a ceiling on the combined payroll of all 23 clubs. The actual dollar amount will grow in line with the gross, giving the players an incentive for pulling in more fans and encouraging fatter investments by network and cable TV. By way of insurance that the players will not suffer if the gross slumps, the pact includes specific minimum guarantees under which the club average for payroll must be at least $3.6 million in 1984-85, $3.8 million in 1985-86 and $4 million in 1986-87.

''We sell a Larry Bird or a Julius Erving to the public as unique,'' said David Stern, the chief negotiator for the National Basketball Association. ''These are very special performers. You can't put them into an assembly-line mold and treat them as identical with everyone else.''

Stern’s caveat — “unless the increasing size of the players’ expensive, designer-brand jeans upsets me” — was, we expect, excised by the Times.

The NBA ran a 16-team bracket from 1984 until 2020. In 2019-20, three sub-.500 NBA teams that nobody remembers finished in the top-16 and the league thought, let’s do the Play-In, let’s showcase this unrivaled booty.

Let’s discuss the winningest teams, mostly the best of the Western, to avoid the playoffs over that span. Least-egregious to most offensive.

We know the greatest 40-win team in NBA history is the Moses Malone-led 1981 Houston Rockets, a team which made the NBA Finals. The greatest 41-win club in NBA history is the 1992-93 Orlando Magic, a group which vaulted ten spots in the lottery and let loose a trade inspiring two columns, 31-years on.

The 42-win 2016 Chicago Bulls I’m OK with missing the playoffs, how else would the team acquire Denzel Valentine? Can’t fuck with those butterfly wings. The 42-win Washington Wizards missed the playoffs by a game in 1998 (despite Chris Whitney’s valiant efforts) which was also justified, 1997-98 was the first season the club was called “the Wizards” and no team which switches its name to “the Washington Wizards” deserves extra ballgames on national TV.

The extra time off allowed Washington Wizards’ general manager Wes Unseld to concoct a trade that was as darkly funny as the ‘Seinfeld’ finale, announcing it on the night of the ‘Seinfeld’ finale, presumably introducing 32-year old Mitch Richmond and 35-year old Otis Thorpe to the strains of an acoustic, mournful, Green Day song.

(Watch the clip to see Peter Vecsey predict Webber eventually pairing with former teammate Latrell Sprewell in Sacramento, and the Knicks making “a major play” for 31-year old Rod Strickland. New York instead made a major play for 24-year old Marcus Camby, and C-Webb’s pal, Latrell.)

The 2012-13 Utah Jazz won 43 games and missed the playoffs.

Sure, go ahead and guess.

Yes, Gordon Hayward was there but no, not a rookie. Third year! No, Deron was gone. Remember who they got for him?

Yes, Derrick Favors, good pull! And, yes, Enes Freedom, good grift.

The remaining names are impeccable: Tyrone Corbin, all-time NBA name, 2012-13 Utah Jazz head coach. Al Jefferson, all-time NBA Al, leading scorer and rebounder. Paul Millsap, because 43 wins requires 83 power forwards. DeMarre Carroll, Marvin Williams, because we’re going to need more guys everyone thinks are on the Hawks.

You correctly guessed Early Alec Burks, but probably didn’t know Earl Watson hung on long enough to make the 2012-13 Utah Jazz. Or Jamaal Tinsley. Randy Foye. Mo Williams in his second turn with Utah? Sure, we can visualize him in that green Jazz uniform even if I can’t remember the faces of any of my high school teachers.

The 2003-04 Jazz were the first team since 1984-85 not to feature John “Stark” Stockton and Karl “Weather” Malone and the first Jazz team since 1983-84 (the first season with a 16-team bracket) to miss the playoffs and good, that’s enough, you got two decades, let some other team in.

That 2004 Jazz team was led by third-year Andrei Kirilenko and that haircut of his and won 42 games. Many “so-called experts” wrote the Jazz off, but Jerry Sloan led the club to the brink of the playoff bracket, in the West, no less. To celebrate this accomplishment, here is a video of Earl Boykins, because Earl Boykins is 5-5:

(By the way: LeBron James has been around long enough to fluster Greg Ostertag.)

Did I want the 2004 Jazz to make the playoffs? Listen, some team was going to draft Kris Humphries, some lunkhead lottery pick was going to make the Kardashians happen anyway, I won’t blame the Jazz.

Alone the same timeline: LeBron James’ 2004-05 Cavaliers were third in the East in late February with 30 games to go, likely driving up the franchise’s price in the same hours Dan Gilbert outbid other final suitors to buy the Cavaliers (officially on the first of March). If Gilbert doesn’t outspend his opponents, I’m not afforded the opportunity to get off that Phil Collins joke when Gilbert tries to get me fired a decade later.

Gilbert bought the team, Gilbert and team GM Jim Paxson fired head coach Paul Silas in spite of the team’s 34-30 record, the team lost 10 of 18 under Brendan Malone and the team missed the playoffs.

The 2018 Denver Nuggets missed the playoffs after dropping a winner-take-all contest for the West’s final seed on the season’s final day. The classic overtime battle all but cemented a Play-In as part of Adam Silver’s future. Adam Silver is fine with the Play-In because he flies privately and jetting directly to Charlotte on a Wednesday is no problem for him.

Those 2017-18 Nuggets lost repeatedly to the NBA’s worst teams, and Denver lost its playoff berth to Jimmy Butler’s smile-on-your-face Minnesota Timberwolves, who hadn’t made the postseason in 14 years. Correctly guessing the Jokic-led Nuggets would live in the playoffs for the next decade, Denver drafted Michael Porter Jr. with its found money.

What happened to the Wolves 14 years ago? How does a team miss the postseason despite prime Kevin Garnett?

Working in the West, but in Central Time. Look what it did to KG:

The Wolves ran out to a 25-26 start in 2004-05, Minnesota GM Kevin McHale fired his buddy and Timberwolves head coach Flip Saunders, Minnesota went 19-12 under McHale and earned a lottery pick for the miss, its first since drafting Ray Allen eight years earlier. McHale selected Rashad McCants for rookie coach Dwane Casey to look after. Another Kardashian boyfriend, again, I’m sorry. Rashad McCants since moved onto a loathsome career as the NBA’s shitty real-life version of Jerry Hubbard.

Now we’re into teams I really, really wanted to see in the playoffs: Seattle won 44 games in 2000-01 and missed the postseason. This was Patrick Ewing’s lone year in Seattle, and like Donna Reed’s lone season at the helm of the Ewing family, it started with a crash and was also quite poorly-lit.

The SuperSonics settled after firing coach head coach Paul Westphal, which was not the case for ‘Dallas,’ as Paul Westphal was never a part of ‘Dallas,’ whether in a managerial role nor with the cast. Paul coached the 2000-01 Seattle SuperSonics to a 6-9 record before the front office grew tired of all the cursing in practice and fired Westphal, who didn’t curse.

Nate McMillan took over and tilted the SuperSonics to a 38-29 record. A 47-win rate over 82 games, navigating Gary Payton’s ornery age-32 season, Vin Baker’s earnest attempt at an All-Star comeback, and several courtside Kenny G appearances alongside new Seattle owner Howard “Chock Full o’ Bullshit” Schultz, who bought the team midseason.

Ewing scored 760 points in 79 games with the SuperSonics, here are 21 of them (for anyone thinking the NBA should restrict illegal defense again):

The NBA was terrible in 2000-01, nobody typified this better than that year’s model Houston Rockets, a team which would find ways to go one-on-one within an orgy. Everything was isolation plays: Steve Francis, dribbling. Cuttino Mobley, dribbling, quick post, facing back up to shoot.

Steve Francis liked that move so he’s going to dribble, turnaround to quick post, face back up to fake a shot, palm the ball, dribble right, closed off on the baseline, back out for Kelvin Cato to take a pass, hand the ball to Steve, and watch as Francis ignored Kelvin on the late-clock screen and roll.

Francis and Mobley appeared altruistic next to teammate Maurice Taylor, who only gave up the ball when Maurice got something caught in his eye and needed each of his own, two, delicate hands to clean it out. Nobody passed. Certainly not Carlos Rogers, not Lanky Dan Langhi, not Hakeem Olajuwon in a contract year. Then there was Moochie.

The group’s offense ranked fifth, the team won 45 times but was out of the 2001 playoffs with a week to go in the season (Minnesota won 47 games for the No. 8 seed). Houston received No. 13 pick Richard Jefferson as its lottery pick, but dealt Jefferson and Houston’s two other low’ish 2001 first-round picks (Jason Collins at No. 18, Brandon Armstrong at No. 23) for the Nets’ No. 7 pick, prospect Eddie Griffin.

The Rockets were used to this position and wanted to make a splash. Houston missed the playoffs by a little, a lot.

The team won 42 games in 1991-92. Houston was a game up on the ninth-seeded Lakers with five days and three contests to play and, yeah, biffed each of them under interim head coach Rudy Tomjanovich (16-14 after taking over at 26-26 for Don Chaney). Lakers made the playoffs, Houston drafted Robert Horry at No. 11.

In 2003, the last run with Rudy T., rookie Yao Ming and Francis won 43 games and missed the playoffs (Suns, 44 wins). No pick that season, sent to the Grizzlies (who chose Marcus Banks before dealing him to Boston) in 1999’s Steve Francis trade.

The Rick Adelman-led Rockets won 42 games in 2010 with Yao sidelined the entire season — the Aaron Brooks Year — and miss the playoffs. The Spurs were the No. 8 seed in 2010 and won 50 games. Patrick, Patterson.

Next season? Yao injured again in 2010-11, Rockets win 43 games but the Pelicans win 46. Rox GM Daryl Morey, early investor in Don’t Aim For the Middle Inc., is upset, angry, so he drafts a Morris Bros. (Marcus).

Next season? Rockets win what pro-rates to 43 wins in 2011-12 (regular season shortened by the owners’ lockout), miss the postseason. Morey moves up in the draft to acquire four Very Morey Guys: Shaun Livingston, Jon Leuer, Jon Brockman, and No. 12 pick Jeremy Lamb. Avoision, it’s a crime, look it up.

Speaking of. The Oklahoma City Thunder missed the playoffs in 2015.

The center position was hopeless, coach Scott Brooks clinging to Kendrick Perkins and Enes Freedom clinging to his man while someone else’s man drives past Enes and scores. The club’s unending search for an off guard resulted in Dion Waiters and Andre Roberson (essentially: Keef Hartley Band but at Woodstock) sharing the floor with Durant’s 27 healthy games, Russell Westbrook, and Serge Ibaka.

Starting small forwards Perry Jones, Kyle Singler and Lance Thomas could not approximate Durant’s production, and the Thunder won 45 games but lost to the Pelicans in a tiebreaker. The Thunder got Cameron Payne out of it, who is by this point somehow only 24th in Win Shares in a terrible draft. Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, hasn’t played in almost four years, still has more Win Shares than Cameron Payne.

I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about the 48-win 2007-08 Golden State Warriors. They disappointed us, all of us, in Phoenix in Golden State’s 81st contest, a must-win game the Warriors lost. We live-chatted the pairing at Ball Don’t Lie, first season for the site, Skeets and myself hosting and a litany of legends dropping gold in the comments: Trey Kerby (goathair), Dan Devine (devineboston), Matt Moore (hardwoodparoxysm), Roger Mason Jr. = Hero (roger mason jr. = hero).

The West was too deep back then. In three different springs — 2009 and 2011 and 2012 — the NBA told us we couldn’t watch Phoenix Nash and Steve’s Suns play basketball anymore, simply because the team’s .500 record or 40-42 record or 46-win season wasn’t enough.

But, hey, got those Bobcats in the bracket. The 39-win Pistons and 41-win Sixers made the playoffs ahead of Nash’s 46-win Suns in 2009 and I’m gonna do you a favor and not name any of those Pistons or Sixers. Some of you can’t remember if Kwame Brown was on the Sixers or Pistons in 2009 and sometimes I wish that was me.

Nash threw to lesser elements: Grant Hill’s one leg on its only foot, Lou Amundson’s ponytail, Michael Redd’s left hand, Hakim Warrick’s no hands, or Marcin Gortat’s shaved, structurally exorbitant dome (his skull seemed to have its own roll cage).

We lost three rounds of Steve Nash’s healthy years so NBA TV could present its darkest moments:

But Nash’s Suns are not the team I missed the most.

No, the team I missed the most in the playoffs was the 2001 L.A. Clippers, I didn’t want to stop watching them.

But the team I needed the most in the playoffs was not a Western team, but the 1999 Charlotte Hornets. The 1999 season was another owners’ lockout season: 50 games, the Knicks won but 27 of them and thrilled us on the way toward a Finals run, if not Finals win.

Charlotte? They coulda Finals won that.

The 1999 season was the first turn in the East’s saeculum horribilis, yet it featured the Finals-bound Knicks at No. 8 and a pro-rated 43-win Hornets team as its No. 9 seed.

The Hornets began the season 4-11 under a flustered head coach Dave Cowens, who didn’t think he’d be coaching Anthony Mason again after the two clashed at the most crucial time the previous May: Charlotte facing Chicago in the playoffs at home in Game 3, working with a 1-1 series tie, home-court advantage over Jordan’s Bulls.

Cowens lifted Mason a little earlier than he was used to, though.

Mason was embarrassed. When he finally got back into the game, he decided to send a message to Cowens. Mason scored his last basket with 2:10 left to play, turned to Cowens on the sideline and challenged the coach to a fight.

Cowens pulled Mason, told him he wasn't playing anymore and told him to ``sit down.' Mason did, grumbling ``You don't play me anyway' as he walked past his coach. Cowens urged Mason to kiss something, and Mason went to the end of the bench and fumed.

``You can't say nothing around here,' he said afterward. ``Everything turns into a confrontation. This'll end up with me as the scapegoat.”

No, that would be Matt Geiger.

Chicago Tribune sent columnist Bernie Lincicome down to Charlotte to ask various Hornets about Phil Jackson and Michael Jordan’s public brand of co-dependence:

“Phil is my coach,” Jordan said for the 100th time.

You get the idea that Jordan would donate Jackson a kidney if asked, or a Lamborghini if not.

In the age of Sprewell, Jordan’s position is not only remarkable but unique. Is it also foolish? Can other players understand it? Would Anthony Mason ever yell at Jackson as he has Dave Cowens, as Mason did Pat Riley?

Oh bleep yes, Bernie.

Maybe there is something about Jackson that encourages faithfulness and seldom-qualified support. Could Mason, from his unique point of view, tell me what it might be?

“Ugh,” Mason said, nearly running over a cameraman as he left the practice floor.

The appropriate response to any sportswriter seeking help with a mawkish column.

Cowens was fired with 35 games to go in 1999, during a rare four-day break in Charlotte’s schedule. In his debut as Hornets interim head coach, Paul Silas beat Boston by 18 while starting three thirtysomethings (J.R. Reid, Charles Shackleford, Chuck Person) alongside rookie Ricky Davis and mainstay David Wesley. A day later, the Hornets dealt the injured (but nearly recovered) Glen Rice and Reid and B.J. Armstrong to Los Angeles for Elden Campbell and All-Star Eddie Jones.

Silas’ group finished 22-13, a 52-win pace. Rookie Brad Miller scored 32 in the season’s final game, Jones received Defensive Player of the Year votes, rookie Ricky Davis certified his NBA credibility after a Ricky Davis-like single season at (if not in) college. Silas gleaned terrific campaigns from real-life basketball trading cards Chucky Brown, Shackleford, Eldridge Recasner, Campbell, but not first-year Hornet Derrick Coleman, signed in the offseason. The Hornets were 11-12 in games DC played under Silas, 15-22 overall with Coleman at play.

Pro-rating hardly handles it, the Hornets were among the best teams in basketball under Silas. If only they’d started earlier: Cowens’ expected firing and rumored Rice-for-Campbell/Jones deals were available well before the regular season began, but team owner George Shinn probably didn’t want to pay a fired Cowens plus a promoted Silas head coaching money at the same time.

So this is how Charlotte came to train: Cowens, seeking a contract extension, expecting a clean slate, instead watching this:

TEAMS WHICH WILL MISS THE PLAYOFFS THIS SPRING

The Pelicans — Knicks doubled them up by halftime on Sunday and the Pels’ best player is Yves Missi. And zero opponents will help New Orleans climb out of a 4-18 disadvantage.

On Sunday, Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau called for a referee review on a non-foul/make-up call sending Dejounte Murray to the line, one possession after the Knicks weren’t called for a clear foul on Murray. In Thibs’ contested call, the refs (obvious to Tom and all of legendary Madison Square Garden) waited for Murray to drive aggressively again and gave Dejounte a free throw trip despite clean Knick defense, making up for whiffing on the last missed call. Thibs’ team was up 32 points over the Pelicans when he rang for the (successful) challenge.

Dejounte Murray is 22-81 from the field with his new team, 27 percent.

The Hornets — losing Tre Mann hurts, and his back woes don’t figure to be something which solves quickly. Grant Williams was the team’s only consistent presence in the interior (at 6-5’ish) and he’s out (ACL) until 2025-26. LaMelo Ball is out a few weeks with a calf strain, Ball averages over 31 points per game on 43/35/85 for the NBA’s fifth-worst offense. Ball guards, nobody.

His absence could yank Charlotte’s middling-ranked defense up a few spots. Less time with Miles Bridges dragging a sorry ass and sore knee will help as well.

The Wizards — Washington fans deserve Cooper Flagg as much as Washington ownership and management does not deserve Cooper Flagg.

Can Washington force an overtime game in 2024-25? I’d like to see them finish 30th in minutes played, because I don’t enjoy seeing the 2024-25 Washington Wizards as much as the 29 other teams.

The Jazz — this is what a youth movement typically looks like, nobody defends, nobody takes care of the ball, Jordan Clarkson appears sage by comparison.

Jazz coach Will Hardy whiffing Sunday’s loss didn’t bother me in real time or the next morning, Utah wants to lose games, and I’m surprised this hasn’t happened before. NBA head coaches need a clicker with access to the buzzer each referee attaches to their hip. It is time to involve tiny, direct current motors into the art of halting the game. Little, baby, radio receivers.

I’m not joking, every referee carries a pager, give coaches the number so we may streamline timeout calls.

I LIKE IT

This only earned a 45 on the Yachtski Scale, which I disagree with (mid-50s) and I’m allowed to, I brought the Queen aboard the boat. Thanks for reading! Consider subscribing:

Up next: NBA teams with a chance at the playoffs. The 2025 playoffs.