A dozen NBA teams to win it all
Do I really think there are 12 teams that can win a title in June? Haven't we seen enough to call it at two? San Antonio and Oklahoma City appear rather motivated at the moment.
I'm up for anything. Southeast Division, even. The East is wide open even ignoring surprise, setback, the potential for pulled hammies and sprained knee-knees. Less math, more rhyming, and then anything goes in the Finals.
Where the East's Finals entry will not be burdened by the effects of battle with the Spurs or Thunder in the previous round.
This is a year unlike any other, maybe since Zaza Pachulia ran right the fuck up underneath Kawhi Leonard. Any other season we'd rank title contenders starting with the West's best seven or eight teams, followed by the Eastern leader, followed by two other Western playoff teams, then seeds No. 2 through No. 6 in the East. Not this spring.
San Antonio proved itself, the Spurs are nearly Oklahoma City's equal. Oklahoma City proved historically (three No. 1 seeds in a row, best record in consecutive seasons) superior. Nobody's thrashing those clubs in consecutive rounds. Other years we could see Clipper Kawhi pinpointing his way toward a baker's dozen playoff wins out of the Play-In, or Anthony Edwards averaging 16 free throws an outing on his way toward a Finals entry out of a No. 6 seed. Maybe even Booker's all-in Suns running into something special as the defending champion runs out gas.
Not now, not this bracket, no topping San Antonio, then Oklahoma City.
Combine Kawhi and Edwards' teams and they'd still have trouble managing eight wins in 14 tries against those combatants. Even with the playoff schedule, all that extra time off to figure out how to find enough chairs for every Clipper and Timberwolves player, how we're gonna create 15 more lockers out of this locker room. It's gonna take that sort of effort.
Let's rank the championship hopefuls. From the Lakers on up to the teams who can actually win it.
LOS ANGELES LAKERS
Only because Los Angeles owns two winnable games against unmotivated teams (Suns, Jazz) plus the tiebreaker over Houston, giving the Lakers the best odds at home-court over Houston in the first round.
There is a world where LeBron James can lead a blind upset of the Rockets and his two teammates return to overcome debilitating injuries to begin toppling the league's best teams four out of seven tries with only three home contests. The people who live in that world will buy Flea's new album on vinyl they'll never play ...
... instead of streaming Fred Jackson's 'Hootin' and Tootin'' for free on the internet.
Or buying a subscription to the only NBA scribe brave enough to take on an easy target ("Flea, but with his trumpet"), but also annoying enough to bring up an unheralded jazz record as hipster replacement.
It's, just, I really love the album 'Hootin' and Tootin'' by Fred Jackson. And I already own a tape with Flea playing trumpet on it.
The trumpet? Take it or leave it. It's no saxophone. It's no trombone. Trumpets are too loud, even on the notes the trumpet players don't play.
PHILADELPHIA 76ers
Didn't Joel Embiid get his appendix out? That's just more days off for those aching legs.
