Now that March Madness is in the rearview mirror and we started what should be an exciting NBA Finals, it seems appropriate to do some reflection; one must ask him/herself what they hold to be important when it comes to a postseason system. If one wants randomness and Cinderella-like stories, one needs not to watch the NBA Playoffs. But if one were inclined to think the purpose of a postseason should be to ultimately crown the best team, then the NBA Playoffs is exactly the playoff system that should pique your interest. If immortalizing the best team is the goal of a postseason tournament, the NBA playoffs are the best of all (North) American sports.
The NBA Playoffs Are the Best at Crowning a Champion
Since the NBA’s inception in 1950, there’s been but a few teams that have advanced to the Finals while entering the playoffs lower than a 3-seed. In many cases, the reason why those teams did not earn a top-3 seed is easily explainable, and it is fairly obvious that they were worthy of higher seeds if things had broke their way during the regular season. Here’s the list (keep in mind, this is the entire list … in NBA history):
1968-69 Boston Celtics (4-seed)
Hardly your garden-variety 4-seed, as they made it to the Finals 11 of the previous 12 seasons. This was the last season of the Bill Russell Era, and an aging team that was clearly pacing itself during the regular season in order to conserve energy for a deep playoffs run. Ultimately, they beat the Lakers in seven games, and Russell retired after the season.
1977-78 Seattle SuperSonics (4-seed)
Of all the teams listed in this space, the ‘77-78 SuperSonics faced perhaps the longest odds of reaching the Finals. However, they caught a couple major breaks: 1) In the second round, overwhelming favorite Portland lost their best and most important player, Bill Walton, in the second game of the series; 2) Milwaukee (a 6-seed, the lowest seed given then) defeated the 3-seed Phoenix Suns in Round 1, and; 3) Seattle matched up against 2-seed Denver in the Western Conference Finals, a team that only won one more game during the regular season. The SuperSonics lost to the Washington Bullets in seven games.
1980-81 Houston Rockets (6-seed)
This Rockets squad actually finished below .500 at 40-42, but were not exactly a typical 6-seed. They had two Hall of Famers on the roster in Moses Malone and Calvin Murphy, along with very good role players Rudy Tomjanovich, Mike Dunleavy, Sr., and Robert Reid. They dealt with a plethora of injuries during the regular season, resulting in only having one player (Malone) logging over 3,000 regular season minutes and only three (Malone, Reid, and Murphy) playing over 2,000. If they were at full health throughout, their record would have been much better, but their injured players recovered in time to put them at near-full health for their playoff run. In the Finals, the Rockets were beaten by the Celtics in six games.
1994-95 Houston Rockets (6-seed)
Seed did not matter to this team. They only had one player appear in all 82 games (Sam Cassell, who only logged a single game as a starter), only had three players miss less than ten games during the regular season, and … oh yeah, they were the defending champions! Houston won the title, sweeping the Magic in the Finals.
1998-99 New York Knicks (8-seed)
This was a strike-shortened season (only a 50-game regular season), and the Knicks had been the toughest out for most of Jordan’s Bulls teams leading up to the ‘98-99 season. After Jordan’s (second) retirement leading up to the season, the Knicks were considered the favorite in the East. But 38 games in, Patrick Ewing suffered a season-ending injury, the team played .500 ball from then until the end of the regular season while adjusting to playing without their star, but put everything together to make the Finals. However, New York lost to San Antonio in five games.
2005-06 Dallas Mavericks (4-seed)
After the Shaq/Kobe Lakers mini-dynasty ended, the gap between the top team in the West and the fourth or fifth-best was paper thin. It seemed like only the matter of time before Dirk Nowitzki and Co. put it all together and made a Finals push. This was that season. Although Dallas lost to Miami Heat in six games.
2009-10 Boston Celtics (4-seed)
Everybody knew Boston’s “Big Three” era with Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen was nearing an end. During the ‘09-10 season, minutes were managers more closely for this squad than perhaps any other team. Their only concern was making the playoffs. They were the ultimate just-make-the-playoffs-and-we’ll-take-it-from-there team. They clearly had different gears for the regular season and postseason. In one of the most evenly-matched Finals ever, these Celtics lost to the Lakers in seven games.
You can see, with very few (if any) exceptions, the best teams make it to the NBA Finals. That really can’t be said for any other sport. In NCAA basketball and football, the NFL, MLB, or NHL, parody within professional sports has made those postseasons increasingly random, making those sports less about giving the championship trophy to the best team as is it about giving it to the last team.
In the NBA, it’s not about who — we largely know what teams will make the Finals — rather, it’s about how; it’s about the journey. As with almost all things, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For someone who likes their playoff system to be the barometer for determining the best team, then the NBA Playoffs are a beautiful thing.
Main Photo:MIAMI, FL – JUNE 21: A detail of the Larry O’Brien Championship trophy as the Miami Heat celebrate after they won 121-106 against the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game Five of the 2012 NBA Finals on June 21, 2012 at American Airlines Arena in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
