Schmeelk: The NBA Continues To Be Predictable, And That's A GOOD Thing
By John Schmeelk
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When people talk about the love affair the United States has with the NFL, one word is always referenced: parity. In any given year, any team (alright, most teams) can rise above and win the Super Bowl. Every fan base has a certain amount of hope that its season can be special when the first week of September comes along. The one-and-done nature of the playoff system lends itself towards that sort of unpredictability. Just get into the playoffs and you have a chance.
Similarly, the NCAA tournament's one-game-and-you're-out format lends itself to the same type of randomness. No. 15 seeds beat No. 2 seeds fairly regularly, despite the huge disparity in talent. Get in the dance and roll the dice.
Even baseball -- a sport with seven-game playoff series, like the NBA -- has developed parity. Nine different teams have won World Series over the last 14 years, many of them wild-card teams that now have to go through a one-game playoff just to play in the division series. If you get into the playoffs, you have just as good of a chance as anyone to win the World Series.
The hockey postseason is a joke, with eight seeds routinely beating one seeds and other major upsets happening in the early rounds of the playoffs. The regular season is meaningless; as long as you get into the playoffs you have a shot.
This is not the case in the NBA, where the best team more often than not wins the playoff series its in. Going back the last 20 years, 12 NBA champions have been one seeds, four have been No. 2 seeds and four have been No. 3 seeds. If you finish in the bottom half of the conference, your chances of winning an NBA title are close to zero. The regular season and how your team performs matters. It was no different this year.
The Golden State Warriors were the best team in the NBA regular season, and they were once again in the playoffs. As superhuman as LeBron James was, he could not muster enough power to beat the best team in the NBA. Many people call the NBA a superstar league, and they're right in that, more often than not, teams have to have one in order to win a championship. But in the NBA Finals, James outplayed Stephen Curry.
It didn't matter. Curry had much better teammates. The best team won.
It might turn people off, but there is some comfort in having a league where the best team wins most of the time. That's what the NBA is right now, and it provides a good contrast to many of the other leagues out there. Predictability, sometimes, is underrated.
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I was an advocate for giving James the MVP after the first four games of this series, but after a subpar Game 6 at home in an elimination game, I had no problem with NBA media members looking elsewhere for the award. I was thrilled that they decided to give the award to Andre Iguodala instead of Curry. Curry played only two games (and one quarter) of top basketball, and was downright bad in two games of the series. He was a deserving regular-season MVP, but not the Finals MVP.
Iguodala's ability to guard James one-on-one, however, really dictated how this series was going to be played. James got his points, but he did so relatively inefficiently. He had to work so hard for them that in most games he was gassed by the fourth quarter. By Game 6, James had nothing left in the tank. All his shots were short. If the Warriors had to double-team James, it would have given his teammates open shots, which could have ignited them and changed the entire tenor of the series.
What assured Iguodala's MVP was his offensive play when the Warriors went small. The Cavaliers tried to stay with their big lineup in Games 4 and 6, but Iguodala burned them time and time again. He did it on both ends of the floor, and was the most consistent Warriors player -- game-to-game -- in this series. He deserved it.
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I know much was made of Steve Kerr giving a verbal commitment to the Knicks, only to go coach the Warriors to the Finals. Is Kerr a better coach than Derek Fisher? Yes. Would he have been able to get the Knicks to the playoffs this year with their roster and injury problems? Unlikely. Kerr made the best move for his coaching career, and the Knicks might very well regret letting him get away. But it isn't as though he would have waived his magic coaching wand and the Knicks would have been contenders. The Warriors' talent is so far and away better than the Knicks' that they aren't even in the same galaxy. Until we see how Fisher does with a more talented roster, we can't judge how big of a mistake this was.
Schmeelk's Snippets
- It was good to see J.R. Smith -- the one that Knicks fans got to know -- show up in the NBA Finals. We missed him.
- Iman Shumpert is still terrible offensively.
- Timofey Mozgov? He's the best player that was involved in that Knicks/Nuggets trade, other than Carmelo Anthony, that's still in the league. When I said including Mozgov in the deal was a no-brainer and a player of his caliber should NEVER hold up a big deal like that, people killed me. How do you feel now? He might be a borderline max player when he becomes a free agent. He is the exact mobile, athletic, high-end defender teams are looking for in a center. Just saying.
- The Cavs are going to be scary next year, though having Kevin Love play major minutes will hurt their defense, which was very good in the Finals.
- Watch Kristaps Porzingis closely. He could be the X factor in this draft. If he goes in the top three, the Knicks could get D'Angelo Russell or Jahlil Okafor. If the Knicks pick him, they might be able to make a trade for a team that has fallen in love with him and still get Emmanuel Mudiay, Justise Winslow or Willie Cauley-Stein later on.
You can follow me on Twitter @schmeelk for everything Knicks, NBA and the Giants.
