KD loves parity
Last week I changed the Beg-o-Meter at the top of this website to the 'Finals Fund,' because that's what I'm after, money to drive to the 2026 NBA Finals.
I don't know where I'm driving.
Draw a line toward Oklahoma City, surely, but can't San Antonio spin its way into this pin? Minnesota may grow into another spring and, for the first time, into summer. Houston has fastballs left to throw. Denver, dragging it, but what if the hooks roll in a seven-game series? Then another, then another?
The Eastern participant? Last autumn I anticipated Cleveland, considered Atlanta outta left field, Lonnie Smith's territory. Never determined Detroit would be in the discussion but bashed around the bit where Boston advances to the Finals with a creative collection of 2025 Pacer-like luck and 2025 Pacer-like play. New York? New York, what a wonderful town.
Four, maybe five (Denver) Western groups can make the NBA Finals. Four, maybe five (WILD CARD) teams have a chance with that East. That's eight or nine or ten NBA teams with championship credibility, a number we haven't seen since the 2010s, when there were eight or nine championship-level teams in the West plus maybe one in the East.
