The Brooklyn Nets’ rise is one of the most heartwarming stories of the season insomuch as any corporate turn of fortune can be heartwarming.
Nets’ playoff rise can’t happen without conference imbalance
We have that and more in Tuesday’s NBA newsletter.
Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports
Everyone involved in the Nets at the ground level seems good, D’Angelo Russell has turned his career around at the right time, and going from the unbelievably bleak place Brooklyn was after the failed Garnett-Pierce-Johnson experiment to the playoffs in four years without many draft picks is worthy of praise.
But let’s not ignore the role geography plays here.
Brooklyn is in the playoffs in the East, and while the Nets would have made the postseason had the NBA wisely pivoted to open seeding where the league’s best 16 teams regardless of conference get in, Brooklyn wouldn’t be particularly close to the playoffs in the West. Brooklyn would be six games out in the West right now.
The outcry over conference imbalance will be minor because in the end, the East No. 8 club might actually have a better or equal record to the West No. 9 team, a rarity in recent decades. But this is partly because the West No. 9-11 teams were effectively eliminated from West playoff contention weeks ago. They have had little but pride to play for since mid-March because the top eight West teams are so good. In the East, the barrier to the playoffs is much lower, so teams have been fighting until the last night. Had the Kings, Lakers, and Wolves had a shot at a playoff spot under open seeding, they could very well have a couple more wins at this point.
This isn’t to diminish what the Nets and Magic have accomplished. They should be proud. And the nature of conference imbalance is indeed changing: the top four teams in the East are arguably as good as any team in the West other than Golden State. But we can’t let ourselves ignore that while 41 or 42 wins in the East gets you a No. 6 seed, you need at least 47 to even get into the playoffs in the West. Until the NBA fixes conference imbalance, these heartwarming rises will come with asterisks, at least among those of us who stubbornly care about these weird policy issues a little too much to be considered healthy.
This has been Grump Corner with Tom Ziller. Thank you for stopping by.
Scores
No scores to report.
Schedule
Whoops, did I include Tuesday’s schedule in Monday’s newsletter because I wasn’t looking terribly closely and had forgotten that the NBA clears the deck for the national championship game, which usually doesn’t happen the third-to-last day of the regular season? I did!
All times Eastern. Games on League Pass unless otherwise noted.
Hornets at Cavaliers, 7
Grizzlies at Pistons, 7
Celtics at Wizards, 7, TNT
Sixers at Heat, 7:30
Knicks at Bulls, 8
Raptors at Timberwolves, 8
Warriors at Pelicans, 8
Suns at Mavericks, 8:30
Nuggets at Jazz, 9
Rockets at Thunder, 9:30, TNT
Blazers at Lakers, 10:30
Links
Kyle Korver didn’t just write an “a-woke-ening” essay. He opened himself up by being seemingly honest about his initial gut-check reaction to the NYPD assault on Thabo Sefolosha a few years back. Kudos to him for being real and for being so forceful in his rhetoric against passive and casual racism. Progress requires more white men to listen, to stand up to racism and then listen some more.
I wrote about how the playoffs without LeBron James are both a nightmare and an opportunity for the NBA. Our art team at SB Nation is inspiring. Like half of my motivation some mornings is writing something worthy of the illustration it’ll get.
The Athletic polled more than 100 active players on a few items, and Sam Amick wrote up the interesting and at times infuriating results. There should be four hours of Kareem highlights at the Rookie Symposium.
Nat Weiner on the Baylor Lady Bears, who always knew they were champs. Mike Rutherford on Virginia’s ultimate redemption. Ricky O’Donnell on Virginia’s dangerous bonding activity. College basketball -- pretty good sport.
The key to the Celtics-Pacers series might be pick-and-roll discipline.
A fitting tribute to Oracle Arena for the Warriors over the weekend. An oral history of We Believe!.
This simple tipping trick could make you feel good about yourself and add joy to the world in small but noticeable measures: tip well.
What happens to fans who spend most of their fan energy calling for someone’s firing when said official is fired? Haley O’Shaughnessy investigates in D.C.
Be excellent to each other.
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