The Quickest Conference Finals

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With the Hawks getting swept and the Rockets on the verge of losing 4-1, we are faced with the obvious question: is this the worst Conference Finals ever?  Well…maybe.  Certainly we are looking at one of the briefest.  The Hawks are the first team to get swept in the Conference Finals since 2002-03, when the Nets swept the Pistons (helped in part by an ankle injury to Chauncey Billups).  We’ve looked at the import of sweeps earlier in the playoffs, but how often do they happen during Conference … [Read more...] about The Quickest Conference Finals

The NBA Draft Lottery and Luck

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Like life itself the NBA Draft Lottery is random, painful and wonderful. It will remain as such unless they adopt that stupid wheel. This piece looks at what teams have been lucky and/or unlucky in the lottery during its 30 years of existence. What I’m looking at is which teams have had the ball bounce their way the most during the lottery era and which teams just can’t catch a break. What the list below shows is how much each team moved up or down in the draft order during the 30 years of … [Read more...] about The NBA Draft Lottery and Luck

First Round Fall Out Part 2

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We now turn to part three of our first round fall out series, the Spurs, Mavs, and the Pelicans: -Spurs: The obvious question is whether the big guns, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili, are coming back.  As a general rule, I am not a fan of the speculation on whether TD or Manu should quit based upon how fans or writers “feel” about the subject.  I also think the notion of only going out on top is pretty silly.  If the players still want to play and someone still wants to play them, then let it … [Read more...] about First Round Fall Out Part 2

First Round Fall Out

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We touched on a few of the first round losers last week (Raptors and Celtics) but now let’s take a look at the fallout for the some of the remaining losers.   Today, we'll look at Milwaukee, Brooklyn, and Portland.  Spurs, Mavs, and the Pelicans will be a little bit later. -Milwaukee Bucks:  The Bucks huge improvement is, no doubt, a rousing success and Jason Kidd has proven himself to be a very solid coach.  The future is wide open too.  The Bucks are no doubt most excited by Giannis … [Read more...] about First Round Fall Out

What’s In A Sweep?

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The tussle between the top seeded Hawks and the eighth seeded Nets has ended up being one of the better match ups in the first round.  While the Hawks were able to eke out a win at home last night, there is a pretty good chance that they could be facing needing to win a Game 7 to advance against the lowest seeded team in the playoffs.  The Hawks should ultimately win this series but does the failure of Atlanta to dominate an eight seed mean anything?  One the one hand, one series is a small … [Read more...] about What’s In A Sweep?

First Round Fall Out: The Sweepees

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The first casualties of the NBA playoffs have arrived.  Both Boston and Toronto were swept out rather easily.  This leads us to our first postmortem entry, our annual Playoff Fall Out segment.  Let’s take a look at the two sweepees and where they are headed: -Boston Celtics:  The Celtics checked all the boxes this season.  They played hard, developed a decent young core, dumped Rajon Rondo for a nice return, maintained cap room, and even somehow made the playoffs.  The fact that the Celtics … [Read more...] about First Round Fall Out: The Sweepees

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