The 10 best reasons to tune into the NBA post-All-Star break
It’s late February, and we’ve entered the polar vortex of the NBA season, as the grind of 82 games wears on viewers as much as it does players. The winter doldrums are real, people. Except if you’re in Miami, where you don’t care about the NBA anyway. I kid, I kid. Sorta.
While we’re wont to set an alarm for when the snow melts and the playoffs start, there are all sorts of reasons to stay tuned to the NBA over these final two months after the All-Star break.
Here are 10 of them, and (spoiler alert) they don’t even include the odds DeMarcus Cousins takes a nap on court during live action, J.R. Smith possibly leaving the Cavaliers to join Bernie Sanders’ campaign or Kobe Bryant potentially taking all the shots in a game going for 100.
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Can the Warriors get to 73-9?
The Warriors are 48-4, on pace for between 75 and 76 wins, which is just about the wildest thing the NBA has ever seen. That would easily surpass the seemingly unbreakable 72-10 standard set by Michael Jordan’s Bulls in 1995-96. Golden State also has a shot to eclipse the 40-1 home mark established by Larry Bird’s Celtics in 1985-86. The ’86 Celtics and ’96 Bulls are widely considered the two greatest teams in NBA history. Should these Warriors break both records in a single season, they’d likely end that debate, so long as they too win a title.
On the other hand, there’s an outside shot this year’s Spurs (45-9) could catch Golden State for the No. 1 seed in the West. One tough stretch could signal the end of the road in any discussion about the Warriors as the GREATEST TEAM EVER. They have a fairly light post-All-Star slate, considering two games with Cleveland are behind them, but there are two bumps in the road.
The first one begins immediately on a seven-game road trip with stops in Portland, Los Angeles (Clippers), Atlanta, Miami, Orlando and Oklahoma City, before returning home for two more against the Hawks and Thunder. Should they survive that stretch relatively unblemished, there’s really only one more skid to avoid — road games in Dallas and San Antonio and home contests against the Clippers and Mavs sandwiched around a stop in Minnesota in late March.
Can anyone catch Steph in the MVP race?
To say Curry has cooled from his ridiculous run during Golden State’s 24-0 start, when he averaged a 32-5-6 for two months, is like saying a red-hot fire has gone from blazing to merely roaring. He leads the league in scoring (29.8 points per game), player efficiency rating (32.1), true shooting percentage (67.6), win shares (11.9) and value over replacement player (6.2).
In fact, Curry remains on pace to eclipse Wilt Chamberlain’s single-season PER record of 31.8 from 1962-63, according to Basketball Reference, so it’d be awful difficult for anybody to prevent him from winning a second straight MVP honor, even for the handful of talents who would normally be in the conversation if someone weren’t enjoying a superhuman season.
Even then, though, Thunder buddies Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant would probably split votes, Swiss Army knife Draymond Green ain’t winning over Curry and four-time MVP LeBron James has dipped to mere mortal status this season, shooting an abysmal 27.4 percent from 3.
Westbrook, Durant and James are all capable of putting together a 30-game stretch unlike anything we’ve ever seen, but isn’t Curry just as likely to blow our minds for two more months?
That leaves reigning Defensive Player of the Year and former Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard, whose 48.2 percent clip on 3.7 3-point attempts per game leads the league. He remains the NBA’s best wing defender and has evolved into an elite offensive weapon as well, so if the Spurs catch the Warriors in the standings, maybe there’s an argument there for him over Curry. Maybe.
Are the Clippers contenders when Blake Griffin gets back?
Most folks accept the Warriors, Spurs, Thunder and Cavaliers as the league’s only real title contenders, but the Clippers want to be the fifth team on that list. They’ve acted as though they belong in that conversation ever since Doc Rivers took the helm in 2013, even though they’ve never gotten further in the playoffs than they did under Vinny Del Negro two years earlier.
Their lack of depth proved an Achilles heel last season, and Rivers tried to solve that riddle over the summer, adding Josh Smith, Lance Stephenson and Paul Pierce to the mix. But Smith and Stephenson are gone, and even Pierce’s old-man game is slipping at age 38. Instead, when Griffin went down with a quad injury and subsequently broke his right hand on a trainer’s face, the Clips have turned to Luc Mbah a Moute and Wesley Johnson while continuing to rely heavily on a core of Chris Paul, DeAndre Jordan, J.J. Redick, Jamal Crawford and Austin Rivers.
That’s still not such a bad core, considering they’re 18-5 in 23 games without Griffin, and the swap of Stephenson for Jeff Green gives Rivers another stop-gap retread to work into the mix. Still, nobody should consider the Clippers serious contenders sans Griffin, who averaged a 26-13-6 during last year’s playoff run, which ended in disaster just short of the conference finals.
Griffin is expected back in March, which seems presumptuous, considering he broke his shooting hand in January. And while adding a player of his caliber to a team that won nearly 80 percent of its games in his absence should qualify them as contenders, how different is this team from the one that’s lost in the second round three of the past four years? If Rivers hasn’t figured it out by now, what are the odds he does in the final few weeks of the season? These are the questions that need answering before the Clips revamp their roster again this summer.
Which teams will have to face the Warriors, Spurs, Thunder and Clippers in the first round?
Even if the Clippers aren’t bona fide contenders, they’re still awfully good, which means the second round of the Western Conference playoffs is all but set. Still, the playoff structure requires the West offer up four sacrificial lambs for national television audiences to consume.
Currently, the Grizzlies, Mavericks, Blazers and Rockets would respectively face the Clippers, Thunder, Spurs and Warriors in a series of bloodbaths. The loss of Marc Gasol to a broken foot could send Memphis into a tailspin, but as the only other Western Conference team with 30 wins already under its belt, their remaining talent should hold off any hard chargers. Likewise, Dallas seemingly will win in perpetuity so long as Mark Cuban surrounds Dirk Nowitzki with warm bodies, which leaves Portland (27-27) and Houston (27-28) clinging to the final two seeds.
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The Jazz, Kings, Nuggets and Pelicans are all within six games of that last spot, and while DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis are both talented enough to put a team on their backs, the former is yet to win 30 games in a season and the latter would have to make up for seven losses in 29 games — a tall order, even for Davis, especially on an injury-riddled roster.
Realistically, the seventh and eighth seeds will come down to Portland, Utah and Houston. For as much as the Blazers have overachieved this season — with backcourt tandem Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum averaging 45.5 points between them — the Rockets have underachieved.
After all, this same group in Houston reached the conference finals last year, and James Harden remains one of the game’s elite players, despite taking his foot off the pedal to start the year. The Rockets and Blazers face each other on national TV for the fourth and final time on Thursday, with Houston needing a win to even the series and equal Portland’s .500 overall record, setting the stage for Harden and Lillard to battle it out in the standings for eight weeks.
Will the Cavs look different under Ty Lue?
The Cavaliers are 9-3 under Lue, which is only a tick better, winning percentage-wise, than they were under recently axed David Blatt (30-11). Other than their record, which still should be good for the No. 1 overall seed in the East, is there anything Lue can do to solve their issues?
Under Blatt, the Cavaliers owned a 105.6 offensive rating and 99.7 defensive rating, both good for fifth in the league, per NBA.com/stats. Since Lue took over, Cleveland has seen a marginal uptick in pace, resulting in a 111.3 offensive rating (fourth) and a 104.9 defensive rating (15th). But perhaps that has more to do with Kyrie Irving returning to health than a new system.
Either way, it’s too early to tell whether much will change under Lue. The Cavs swapped Anderson Varejao for Channing Frye at the deadline, adding a floor-spacing big man who should fit well into a faster-paced offense. And perhaps Frye entering the fold signals a return to the post for Kevin Love, whose role could be the determining factor in Lue’s long-term prospects.
Most of all, though, the Cavaliers were banking on the team rallying behind a new face, since they didn’t much seem to enjoy the old one, and that might be the only new look they needed.
Who is the second-best team in the East?
Easy answer: The Raptors, who trail the Cavs by just three games in the loss column and ranked among the league’s 10 best teams in offensive rating (105.8) and defensive rating (101.5).
Honestly, though, a case could be made for almost half the conference. The Celtics are in the same boat, ranking ninth in offensive rating (103.5) and third in defensive rating (99.6). The Hawks are a year removed from a 60-win season. The Heat can roll out a dangerous lineup of Hassan Whiteside, Chris Bosh, Justise Winslow, Dwyane Wade and Goran Dragic, even if they’ve appeared in just 24 games together. Likewise, the Bulls are perennially a healthy roster away.
Heck, even the 10th-seeded Wizards were a couple Paul Pierce buzzer-beaters away from the conference finals a year ago. But the Raptors, in record alone, own the distinction for now.
Whether Toronto is conference finals-bound remains to be seen, as the Raptors haven’t even reached the second round in 15 years. Are the additions of DeMarre Carroll and Cory Joseph enough to make the leap? Or has the rest of the conference merely fallen behind them? Fifty-plus games into the NBA season, we’re still waiting for a legit threat to the Cavs to emerge.
What in the heck will the East playoff picture look like?
Four losses separate the third-seeded Celtics from the ninth-place Pistons, and another five teams are within six games of the final playoff seed in the Eastern Conference. It’s a mess.
The Magic (23-29), Knicks (23-32) and Bucks (22-32) may all have too tough a road, even to catch the Jimmy Butler-less Bulls (27-26) and Al Jefferson- and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist-less Hornets (27-26). But Detroit (27-27) and Washington (24-28) both made moves to make a push down the stretch, respectively acquiring Tobias Harris and Markieff Morris — two of the better players to change teams.
We could see Cavs-Bulls, Celtics-Heat and Raptors-Wizards, all in the first round. Cool. Outside of Cleveland, no team is guaranteed a conference semifinals appearance. And who reaches the conference finals could simply be a matter of how the matchups set up at regular-season’s end.
Can the Lakers or Suns tank better (worse?) than the 76ers?
The 76ers have single-digit wins at the All-Star break and are on pace to finish with a worse record than they have each of the past two seasons, when they’ve been an embarrassment.
Yet, somehow they’re not playing like the worst team in the league.
Since Jan. 14, they’re 4-9, with seven losses by single digits, including three in overtime and a one-possession loss to the Warriors. Whatever that is, it’s not atrocious. Philadelphia has figured out the Nerlens Noel-Jahlil Okafor rotation, and Ish Smith is a stabilizing playmaker.
The Lakers are three wins ahead of (behind?) the Sixers and have all the incentive in the world to plummet to the bottom. Their first-round pick is top-three protected, and the harder they fall, the better odds they have of preventing their pick from transferring to those same 76ers.
Meanwhile, the Suns dealt Morris, which benefits them from a team chemistry standpoint, if they were a team to begin with. They’ll likely start Devin Booker, Archie Goodwin, P.J. Tucker, Mirza Teletovic and a 33-year-old Tyson Chandler out of the All-Star break, which is something.
The Timberwolves would be wise to pack it in, just for the outside shot of pairing another No. 1 overall pick with Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns. Other teams will join the tanking fun in the next 10 games, when they’re all but locked into the lottery. Always a good time.
What are the odds the Nets give away a No. 1 overall pick?
There’s one team with absolutely no incentive to tank, but the Nets can’t help themselves. While the hiring of Sean Marks as general manager may soon put a stop to the front-office madness, that doesn’t make up for the fact he owes his next three first-round picks to Boston.
At 14-40, the Nets own the league’s third-worst record, which means there’s currently a 15.6 percent chance they’ll owe the Celtics the No. 1 overall pick. Along with the Lakers, Brooklyn is one of two teams to rank in the NBA’s bottom three in both offensive and defensive rating.
And L.A. actually wants to be bad.
Had the Nets succeeded in securing a first-round pick for Thaddeus Young, Brooklyn would’ve had a real shot at offering the C’s an even better chance in the Ben Simmons sweepstakes, but Young and Brook Lopez should prevent Boston from earning the best lottery odds. Still, what a wild situation to be in, when the only thing left to play for this season is sticking it to the Celtics.
What superstars won’t make the playoffs?
At the break, seven of the league’s 26 All-Stars were on the outside looking in at the playoff picture, including two of the top five MVP vote-getters last season in James Harden and Davis. Carmelo Anthony, Kobe Bryant and DeMarcus Cousins will all be watching from home again. Another three All-Stars are on the verge of dropping out of the East’s final few playoff seeds.
A league built on its star power would like to see as many of those players competing when the casual NBA fan tunes in come playoff time, and this season seems to feature an inordinate number of so-called stars on wildly underachieving teams. Last year, for example, Melo, Kobe and Boogie were the only three of 28 All-Star selections not to appear in a playoff series.
This phenomenon allows for three intriguing scenarios. First, there’s always the chance those stars spark a late surge back to the playoffs, like how John Wall began his quest to make up three games in the standings with a double-double in a big win over the Jazz on Thursday. Second, superstars like Davis can finish the season with decent lottery odds, presenting the possibility the Pelicans could find a Robin to the Brow’s Batman in the draft, altering the NBA landscape for a decade. And, finally, new stars could be born in the season’s final months.
Kemba Walker hasn’t gotten his due for keeping the Hornets afloat as injuries pile up in Charlotte, and the Jazz trio of Rudy Gobert, Derrick Favors and Gordon Hayward would make for an intriguing first-round matchup out West, if the conference weren’t so loaded at the top.
So, stay tuned, folks. After all, what else are you doing in February and March that’s so important? And if none of these reasons do it for you, just watch for the off chance Kevin Garnett reveals himself to be an actual timber wolf during the final full moon of his career.
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Ben Rohrbach is a contributor for Ball Don’t Lie and Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach
