Astro:

Milwaukee is sixth in the East and barely has a plus-.500 record. Their strong three point shooting is obviously not enough to compensate for other weaknesses.

In contrast, Memphis is the second seed in the West and would seem to be well positioned to contend for the title but I think that, for the reasons described in the article, their poor perimeter shooting will be their downfall. This weakness has been repeatedly exploited by Memphis’ opponents in the past few postseasons.

Eugene:

The “minute” shooting percentages were the key factor in the series, as I predicted before the series. The Grizzlies had the good fortune of squeezing out some overtime wins but they lost by at least 10 points in three other games, including the winner take all game seven. OKC established a clear superiority in the series.

Do you really think that all eight entrants into the Western Conference playoffs have an equal, 1/8 chance of winning? I am predicting that the current second seed, a team which many commentators believe is well positioned to make a championship run, will not make it to the Finals. I may be right, I may be wrong, but I am hardly stacking the odds. If I were saying that New Orleans or Phoenix or some team that might not even make the playoffs is a long shot to make the Finals then your criticism would be valid.

Tony:

Carter is shooting .343 from the field overall, including .280 from three point range.

Green is a solid addition offensively but he is not great defensively.

A low turnover rate ultimately only matters if a team uses those extra possessions effectively, which will be hard for Memphis to do in the playoffs for the reasons described in the article.

Optimus Prime:

That is a very good question. One possible solution would be to get rid of the draft entirely and make all teams bid for players on the open market. That is the way that hiring practices work in most industries. Teams would still be limited by the salary cap and by a maximum roster size of 15, so one wealthy team could not just buy up all of the best players. If there were no draft then there would be absolutely no incentive for a team to lose and in fact losing teams would have to pay a premium in order to get players to join their rosters.

Express34Texas:

How is Thompson’s article misleading? The point is that no team in the past three decades or so that intentionally hit rock bottom has subsequently won a title. No one denies the value of drafting good players or the impact that a great player can have but the point is that the strategy of intentionally being bad for one or more years with the idea that this is a shortcut to greatness has been proven not to work. Teams that develop losing cultures are not going to fully develop the talents of a great player even if they luck out and get such a player. It is also possible to have a terrible record and not even get the number one pick. It makes much more sense to methodically improve one’s team as opposed to razing the roster and hoping for the best.

Express34texas:

The exact line in my article, which is a direct quote from Derek Thompson’s piece, is “…a truly awful team has never once metamorphosed into a championship squad through the draft.” That has a much different meaning than the way you paraphrased it (“no teams have ever become title teams through the draft”). Of course the draft is an important tool for building a team but the point is that in the past three decades no team has ever intentionally become awful (as the 76ers and other teams are doing now) and then become a title team. The Spurs, as mentioned above, did not intentionally become awful; they suffered through injuries, most notably to David Robinson, but they never succumbed to a losing mentality/philosophy.

Express34texas:

I think that I detect just a hint of Houston bias in your screen name!

Seriously, though, Harden is having a very good year but I would not take him over James even just for this season. Forget the numbers for just a second. Other than free throw shooting, Harden is not better than James in any skill set area. James posts up better, handles the ball better, defends much better, rebounds better, passes the ball better, etc.

Durant won the scoring title and the MVP last year but prior to that the last scoring champion to win the MVP was Iverson in 2001. Add in the fact that Harden is on pace to have the lowest ppg average for a scoring champion since the lockout-shortened 1999 season and I don’t think that Harden’s scoring is reason enough to give him the MVP.

It will be interesting to see how Cleveland and Houston finish. James switched teams and has a rookie coach, so there has been a feeling out process for the Cavaliers.

In general, I think that the media and the fans look for reasons to not vote for the best player and instead crown someone new. There is a lot of media buzz about Harden because he is the darling of the fans of “advanced basketball statistics” and supposedly the harbinger of a new way to play basketball, though I think that Houston is not the first team to figure out that layups and corner three pointers are good shots. The corner three pointer is almost two feet closer than the top of the key three pointer, so one does not need an MIT degree to figure out that there is some value there.

Anyway, this is a fun debate and it will be entertaining to watch these players/teams down the stretch!

Mikeysoundtrack:

I am glad that you enjoyed the article!

The vast majority of the article focused on LeBron James, explaining why I think that he is the best player and why I think that the best player should win the MVP. I didn’t do a 1-5 list of my top candidates but just devoted most of the space to making a case for the guy I think should be the top candidate. Before the season ends I might do a 1-5 style MVP article.

I thought that if anyone else “had” to be mentioned it was Westbrook, not just because of his historic month but because of his great numbers throughout this season (26.5 ppg, 8.1 apg, 6.8 rpg). I’d take Westbrook over any guard.

My point with Curry, who I only mentioned in passing, is that he would get the MVP right now based on the “best player on the best team” standard but what if Atlanta passes Golden State in the standings? Would that disqualify Curry and elevate one of the Hawks? Team record should of course be a consideration but I consider the MVP to be an individual award, not a team award. Obviously, not everyone agrees with me, including the official voters (based on some of the previous winners)!

Why does James Harden have to be mentioned? My thesis is that the MVP should go to the best player, not the best player on the best team (which Harden is not, anyway), not the best story, not the best player who has not won the award. Faulty reasoning led to MVPs for Nash (over Shaq, Kobe, etc.) and Dirk (team had best record, then lost in first round) and for Barkley and Malone when voters supposedly got tired of giving the honor to Jordan every year. LeBron James is the best player in the NBA. Everyone realizes this, yet there is some kind of bizarre debate about which other guy should get the award. Other than free throw shooting percentage, what does Harden do better than James? Harden is smaller, cannot play as many positions and is a below average defender. Do you think that the Cavs would trade James for Harden straight up? What about the Rockets? Do you think the Rockets would keep Harden over James if they could make that choice? The lovers of “advanced basketball statistics” push the Harden storyline, even though it has taken years for Daryl Morey to build a good team–and that team has still yet to advance past the first round in Harden’s tenure in Houston. If someone really wants to push for the MVP being the best player on the best team then Curry is the choice but what if Atlanta passes Golden State on the last day of the season? Would that mean that the MVP instantly switches from Curry to Teague or Horford or someone else? The most logical method is to choose the best player.

The point of the title is that it is a play on words relating to a phrase often uttered by commentators before the playoffs: “Nobody wants to face” team X. As I indicated in the article, most of the time this statement is just hype and the team that supposedly nobody wants to face loses in the first round. This year, if OKC lands in the seventh or eighth spot and gets/stays healthy the Thunder are legitimately a team that nobody would want to face, particularly in the first round. Do you really think that a healthy Thunder team armed with Durant, Westbrook, Ibaka and the new acquisitions is just like a regular seventh or eighth seed? Do you really think other teams would not be more concerned about OKC’s talent, depth and experience than they would be about teams like Houston, Portland and Dallas that have the weaknesses I mentioned in previous comments?

Saying repeatedly that every team from 1-8 is talented is not analysis. You are just stating an opinion unsupported by facts/analysis. I support my conclusions with facts and analysis.

Joe:

I have interviewed Kerr, Popovich, Carlisle and Rivers at various times, though I have not asked them that specific question about this year’s playoffs. I think that I have some idea which matchups they would prefer and which matchups any top coach would prefer in general, based on the reasoning I outlined in my article and in the handful of comments that I have posted in this thread. If you are convinced that every team 1-8 in the West is equally situated to challenge for the championship then of course you are entitled to that belief and I am pretty sure that nothing anyone says will dissuade you from thinking that way.

I noticed that in your two comments you have done some shouting (in all caps) and some name-calling but you have yet to supply any actual analysis supporting your beliefs or explaining why you disagree with mine. It is a lot easier to call someone or something “dumb” than to actually craft a cogent explanation of why something is or is not true.

Swampy:

Thank you!

Yes, health could very well derail OKC. I actually submitted my article before hearing the news about Durant’s most recent foot procedure. This could be a chance for Westbrook to make a late run at MVP if OKC continues to do well but of course it will be very hard for OKC to advance in the playoffs–particularly as a seventh or eighth seed–without Durant playing at a high level.

Memphis might like the chance for revenge against OKC but if Durant returns for the playoffs at anywhere close to his normal form I would take OKC again, even without home court advantage. Pack the paint against Randolph and Gasol and just dare anyone else to make a shot outside of the paint.

It is not true that “nobody wants to face any other team.” If I were Golden State, I would much rather face Houston, Portland, Dallas and the Clippers than a healthy OKC squad. Matchups matter during the playoffs and so does experience. OKC has proven that it can advance to the Western Conference Finals and the NBA Finals, while most West teams have not proven that (except for the Spurs, obviously, and the Mavericks, though the Mavericks did it four years ago with a much different team and a much younger Nowitzki).

All three of Memphis’ wins in the first round last year came in overtime; yes, the series went seven but Memphis could easily have been swept, especially considering that three of OKC’s four wins came by double digits, including the final two games of the series. Sorry, but the numbers and the eye test do not suggest that Memphis was a team that nobody wanted to face and the Grizzlies were certainly not a team that OKC did not want to face. The Grizzlies struggle to score in the postseason when teams pack the paint and dare Memphis to make an outside shot and that will likely be the Grizzlies’ downfall again in the 2015 playoffs.

Joe:

What evidence do we have that Houston, Portland, Dallas and the Clippers are as dangerous as a healthy OKC team in a seven game series? Harden has yet to take Houston past the first round. Portland’s only playoff series win in recent memory is against Houston. Dallas has improved this season but the last time the Mavs won a playoff series was 2011. There is a lot of hype about the Clippers but in the past three years they have won exactly two playoff series. I don’t buy the idea that those are teams that nobody wants to face. In fact, I am pretty sure that Golden State would rather face any of those teams than a healthy OKC, particularly in the first round; if Golden State finishes with the best record then they will be perceived as failures if they lose in the first round and OKC is the last team that I would want to see in that circumstance if I were Golden State. If Golden State wins a series or two and loses to a hot OKC team then it could be argued that Golden State had a good run but a first round loss will be tough to stomach under any circumstances after the kind of regular season that Golden State is putting together.

OKC may pull ahead of the Spurs for 7th but even that would require them gaining four games on the Spurs in the final 25 or so, which is not so easy unless the Spurs just collapse. It is very doubtful that OKC can move past seventh. The Clippers and Mavs are currently sharing 5th-6th, 7.5 games ahead of OKC. Even if those teams win just half of their games the rest of the way OKC would have to go 20-5 to pass them; if those teams play .600 or better then OKC would have to go 22-3 to pass them and if they continue to win roughly two thirds of their games then it would be mathematically impossible for OKC to catch them.

So, the first point to understand about my article is the premise that OKC is likely going to be the seventh or eighth seed, not fifth, sixth or seventh.

The second point is that at the end of almost every season we hear some overheated commentators declare that one of the seventh or eighth seeded teams is a team that “nobody wants to face”–and this usually turns out to be rubbish, as I pointed out last year in an article titled “The Real Team Nobody Wants to Face.” This year, though, OKC figures to be an unusually dangerous seventh or eighth seeded team. They have enough talent, experience, depth and balance to beat any Western Conference playoff team. The last time that they were healthy during the playoffs they advanced to the NBA Finals.

The third point–not explicitly stated, but implied–is that the current top three teams in the West have weaknesses that OKC could exploit in a playoff series. Golden State’s nucleus has no championship level experience and their frontcourt is small. Memphis has no outside shooting (as mentioned in the article). Houston’s leading scorer is James Harden, who historically performs poorly in the playoffs and who has yet to lead Houston past the first round.

A healthy OKC and a healthy Spurs team are the only West teams that I think could beat anyone. The other West teams all have weaknesses and/or do not match up well with certain squads.

Therefore, this could be a season in which certain teams earn 1-2-3 seeds but fall in the playoffs to OKC and/or the Spurs, teams with Fiinals experience and more well-rounded rosters. That conclusion has nothing to do with “fandom” and everything to do with analyzing how these various teams are constructed and how they match up with each other.

The NBA had fewer teams in 1975, so one could argue that the competition was better at that time because there were fewer roster spots open. Of course, one could counter that argument by pointing out that some of the best pro basketball players in the world in 1975 played in the ABA instead of the NBA. The bottom line is that it is hard to compare a team from 1975 to a team from 2015.

One thing that has held true over various eras is that it usually takes at least one superstar/top 10 player to win a title. Regardless of what one thinks of the 1975 Warriors or the 1975 NBA, the 1975 Warriors clearly had a top 10 player and that makes them a lot different from the 2015 Hawks, the 2004 Pistons and the 1979 Sonics.

Parker made the All-NBA Second Team last season, so he was considered a top 10 player last season. In the article I stated that most championship teams have at least one top 10 player, so I would put the 2014 Spurs in that category. I don’t expect that any Hawk will make the All-NBA Second Team this year.

Ohtani’s Jacket:

The three constants on those 1980s Celtics championship teams were Bird, McHale and Parish. Championship dynasties typically have such cornerstone players, even if the pecking order among those players shifts over time. McHale’s role steadily increased during the 1980s but even in 1984 he was already an All-Star. More to the point in terms of this article and my observation about championship teams generally having at least one top 10 player, Bird won the 1984 regular season MVP, so without even looking at McHale’s 1984 status the Celtics clearly had one of the 10 best players in the NBA.

The 1975 Warriors lacked the overall talent of most championship teams but they unquestionably had a top 10 player; Rick Barry was probably the best player in the league that year, though his unpopularity among his peers cost him the regular season MVP (the players voted for the MVP at that time). Barry won the Finals MVP and the respected magazine Sport had a cover declaring “Rick Barry is Superman.”

Ryan:

The Hawks are similar to the Spurs and their Coach Mike Budenholzer used to be a Spurs assistant but the Spurs have more legit star power/superstar power than the Hawks. Without even considering that Duncan is a multiple MVP and Finals MVP who will be a first ballot Hall of Famer, it is enough to note that Parker has made the All-NBA Second Team the past three seasons, so a solid case could be made that he is among the 10 best players in the NBA.