There have been a lot of teams that have risen to the top when it comes to the playoff time of the NBA. Unfortunately, there have also been a lot of teams that have fallen off a cliff right now, like my Milwaukee Bucks, who are not in the playoffs. It doesn’t help that the coach Doc Rivers somehow got elected into the NBA Hall of Fame. I think he’s a terrible coach. You know my opinions, I wrote an op-ed about it. If you haven’t, I would suggest you read that, but I dislike his talent in his coaching style immensely. Anywho, with the teams that are in the playoffs currently, there’s a few that I don’t really want to talk about. But I want to see how some teams do, given how they progressed throughout the season.
- The Oklahoma City Thunder is the team that stands out to me as the favorite to win the NBA championship again. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, along with Chet “Shit” Holmgren, and some of the other role players like Jared McCain have opened up a lot of their spacing. It’s allowed them to create a lot more shots and opportunities that you would not usually see from the earlier teams like the Thunder this year. I think what they’re doing right now has them on pace to have one of the more efficient seasons that we’ll see. However, I have two other teams that I am actually more invested in as the playoffs come around.
- The San Antonio Spurs are some of my favorite players in the league right now. Victor Wembanyama is a freaking alien and I think that his progress since coming into the league has improved leaps and bounds. With his length, we have never seen a player like him before. I’m currently on a binge of watching his games where his athletic performances, night in and night out, have been nothing short of spectacular. He’s averaging 30 points right now, along with 11 rebounds. If I’m not mistaken, he’s having one of the most efficient, dominant seasons that we have seen (RIP Giannis).
- The last team I will talk about is the Detroit Pistons. The Pistons are one of my favorite teams to watch because they play with such physicality that reminds me of a modernized version of a style that we would’ve seen from their 2004/2005 teams. Unfortunately, Detroit will never be able to replicate those seasons because of the rule changes, the overall space, and style of play that’s more common nowadays. Detroit is a sneaky team with Cade Cunningham leading the way. Without his leadership, I don’t see them making a deep run or any type of actual impact in the playoffs. Detroit’s success is contingent on Cunningham staying healthy and continuing to progress in terms of passing the ball. He is such a fantastic shooter, flasher, and overall finisher. As long as that passing goes up, I think he’ll be a freak on the court, continuously developing with his teammates.
Lastly, I would like to say that there’s plenty of other teams that are going to be just as good. The Celtics, the Lakers, and the Nuggets are all coming out as lower seeds than some of the teams I just talked about, but I still think they’ll make an impact during the playoffs. I can’t see a world where one of these teams actually ends up making it further than the top teams.
Featured image: Detroit Free Press
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