Wake Me Up In June

It's that time of year again.  No, I'm not talking about Spring, random April snow showers, Spring Break, or even Baseball.  That's right, it's time for the first round of the NBA playoffs!!!  In case you didn't catch my sarcasm in that first sentence, then please be sure to wake me up in late-May / early-June.  Okay, I am a HUGE basketball fan.  It is easily my favorite sport to watch, play, etc., but that is exactly why I hate the first (and even a lot of the second) round in the NBA playoffs.  Why, you ask?  First of all, the NBA allows more than half of its teams to get into the playoffs (16 out of 30), allowing below-average teams such as the 37-45 Indiana Pacers to play a couple of extra games in the first round every year.  The NBA then had the bright idea in 2003 to switch the first round playoff format from best-of-5 games to best-of-7 games in 2003, thus eliminating almost any possibility of a first round upset by a lower-seeded team.  A best-of-7 series guarantees one thing:  the better team usually wins.  Only once since 2003 has a #8 seed beat a #1 seed (Golden State over Dallas).

Will there be an upset in the NBA playoffs like
Morehead State over Louisville?  Not in a 7-game series.

An NBA best-of-7 series does exactly what the NBA wants it to do: it creates Conference Final and NBA Final matchups with the better teams and the better players.  Do you really think the NBA commissioner was sad to see Lebron James and Chris Bosh leave their smaller basketball-market NBA teams (Cleveland and Toronto, respectively) to join Dwayne Wade in one of the larger NBA markets (Miami) this year?  Did the league allow for the most uneven trade in NBA history to take place with Pau Gasol ending up with the Los Angeles Lakers (The Lakers have not missed the NBA Finals since Pau joined the Lakers in 2008)?  The lowest-rated, least-watched NBA Finals took place in 2007 between the San Antonio Spurs and the Cleveland Cavaliers.  Even though two of the best players (Lebron James and Tim Duncan) were involved in the series, its ratings suffered from two of the smaller-market teams getting to the league's showcase event.  Is it any coincidence that the Pau Gasol trade took place the very next season?  I'm just sayin'...

NBA Commissioner David Stern would love
to see a Kobe-Lebron NBA Finals matchup.

The only advantage of the current format of the NBA playoffs is that there is rarely any argument which team is the best team in the league, unlike when Connecticut won the NCAA tournament this year like I wrote about here.  Meanwhile, the NCAA Tournament and the NFL playoff format create for much more exciting games because they are a "one-and-done" playoff system.  If even the "best" NFL or NCAA team has an off-night or makes an unusual amount of mistakes in a playoff game, then they may not have the advantage of letting the better talent or the better coaching between the two teams take over and avoid losing three more times.  Does an NBA team from Indiana (the Pacers) have the same chance to make the Finals as an NCAA team from Indiana (Butler)?  No way!  Will a small-market team like the Memphis Grizzlies have a chance to mimic the success of the much smaller-market team of the NFL (Green Bay Packers) in winning the championship this year?  Not unless they plan on signing Aaron Rodgers for the playoff run...or unless the NBA switches to a "one-and-done" playoff format.  As my brother-in-law put it a couple of weeks ago, there is a definite tradeoff between an exciting playoff format and the best team winning all the time.

Neither Kobe and Lebron has ever had the pressure
of a "one-and-done" playoff format having both skipped
to the NBA directly out of high school.

Don't get me wrong, I was one of the 4 people who actually watched the 2007 NBA Finals between the Cavaliers and the Spurs.  I love watching the NBA playoffs once we see matchups like the Lakers vs. Spurs or the Celtics vs. Heat, or what the NBA commissioner really wants to see this year the Lakers vs. the Heat (By the way, if want to see who the NBA wants to see in the NBA Finals, then just pay attention to which teams are scheduled to play on Christmas Day, which is probably the most-watched regular season games all year).  Unfortunately, the current playoff format elicits boring first and second rounds and a month-long wait for the best teams to be left standing.

Has anyone asked you if you have filled out your NBA bracket yet?  Me neither.