Miami probably missing the knockout stage even with a win against Milwaukee without Butler and Herro is just sad and not a good look for this tournament when their only loss would be to a missed buzzer beater. They’re mostly getting punished because they played the Wizards and Hornets when the bad teams were in better condition to compete.

Tournament would be much better with either 2nd place in every group making the knockout stage, with the top 2 seeds getting a bye into the round of 8 (like 12-team NFL playoff format), double wild card play-in match to play the top seed (like 10-team MLB playoff format), or if they’re insistent on the Top 8 cut (Magic the Gathering playoff format) then points defeated by in losses would be a better tie breaker than scoring margin since that is something a team can fully control.

To put LeBron’s longevity in perspective, he’s played in the NBA longer than Josh Giddey’s girlfriends have been alive.

Bragging rights. It’s explained in the commercial.

Celtics and Heat have his number. If Bucks got moved to the West, Giannis might go to the finals every year (just to lose to the Celtics or Heat).

Agree with this.

I think James Harden actually was more talented than Jimmy, but you can’t ignore the playoff stuff. Harden is a lot better in the playoffs than people give him credit for, but he’s never stepped up during nut crunching time to single handedly win series against good opponents like all the other greats do. We’ve seen LeBron, KD, Curry, Kawhi, Giannis, Jokic, etc. do. Jimmy has done this on multiple occasions, while Harden always found a way to come up short against the Warriors or Spurs.

1. Charles Barkley
2. Jimmy Butler
3. Elgin Baylor
4. Reggie Miller
5. Chris Paul
6. Karl Malone
7. James Harden
8. Paul George
9. Steve Nash
10. Dominique Wilkins

Nikola Jovic was still in high school while playing his first NBA season.

The Clippers should try to beat the Bulls to the blow it up market.

They should at least be able to land a nice package for Paul George. Kawhi should also fetch something decent. They can probably just buyout Harden.

The tournament gives teams a chance to prove that they’re the best team in the league.

Winning the Double Crown in a season is better than just a regular championship season too and is important for ranking the historically great teams all time.

There’s a reason why front offices should pick the coaches and not the players. With either Nick Nurse or Budenholzer, the Bucks would look like world beaters. Instead, they’re going to be a play-in team and lose to Miami in the first round.

Warriors need to make some type of mega trade using Klay and maybe CP3’s expiring contracts along with Kuminga and every picks and swaps that they have available.

Someone like the Bulls are a natural partner as they could send back multiple good rotation players in some combo of Lavine, Caruso, and Vucevic in the same trade.

Right now, the Warriors don’t stack up talent wise as a contender and are poised to waste another year of Steph Curry’s peak prime.

Klay needed to pull up from Curry in OKC range.

Time to sell high on Lavine! Blow it up.

His heart just isn’t in Portland.

NBA messed up excluding an entire conference. Naturally they wouldn’t hit on the top 4 teams in the West.

Any combination of Bucks/Celtics/Heat against each other would have been great. Sixers vs. Nuggets could have been good. Heat vs. Nuggest rematch with healthy Heat could have been good. Celtics super team vs Suns super team.

Just a dumb decision to neglect an entire conference from opening night.

San Antonio Spurs

Wembanyama is going to walk into the NBA as the best defensive player in the league and they’re loaded with draft picks to trade for a superstar midseason.

Have a decent chance to go to the finals. Wemby is the meta counter to Jokic.

People are sleeping on the Spurs. They had a positive net rating two seasons ago. Probably could have made the play-in last season if Popovich didn’t want to tank.

I’d pencil him in as defensive player of the year. He will average 4.7 blocks this year.

Also wouldn’t be surprised if he won Finals MVP this season.

He’s like the forward version of James Wiseman

Popovich will stay in the Spurs coaching job until his death in May 2045 after he suffers a heart attack during the NBA draft lottery when the Knicks get the first overall pick in the draft and the Spurs fall to 2nd, missing out on being able to draft Stephen Curry’s youngest son Wardell Stephen Curry III, the 6’6" sharpshooter out of UCLA that shoots over 50% from three on 14 attempts per game during his freshman year in college.