What If The NBA Playoffs Started Today?

Now that we’ve had every team in the league play, there are without a doubt some fans out there that looked at the NBA standings today and said to themselves “maybe this is the year”. In my opinion there’s nothing wrong with that, and obviously there’s no way things change from here on out, we can all agree on that. Honestly one of my favorite traditions is when I’m told “it’s Summer League this doesn’t matter” and then that transitions to “it’s preseason this doesn’t matter”, which then transitions to “it’s October this doesn’t matter”, and so on and so forth until we get to the classic “none of this matters the Warriors are going to win the title”. Well newsflash people, it ALL matters. And frankly how dare you rain on the parade of some franchise that woke up today sitting in the highest spot they’ll be all year. Don’t take this away from them.

It made me think, what if the Playoffs started today? How would things look? Isn’t there that hockey saying that the standings after Thanksgiving pretty much tell you what the playoff seeding will look like? Not exactly a hockey guy but I feel like I’ve heard that. So naturally I went over and took a look at the standings for this fun little exercise, and honestly some of the matchups would be fun as hell. As of right now, here are how things stand

Right off the bat, in looking at the East this really isn’t all that surprising. Sure maybe you throw WSH over ORL, but in terms of a total collection of teams, I’d put some money on this is generally what we will be seeing come the Spring.

Pacers vs 76ers

I am very much here for a playoff series between these two teams in the first round. It has everything you could want, star power, deep teams, good coaching, good home crowds for both sides, the works. Also it would be interesting to see if the Pacers could continue their dominance over PHI who they are 14-3 against over the last 5 seasons. I think Embiid vs Turner would be fun, Oladipo already proved to be a big time player in the playoffs and it’d be interesting to see how their guard depth could combat what PHI throws out there.

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Knicks vs Bucks

Hilarious to me that MIL finds themselves back in the 7 seed after finishing there last season. Seeing as how in this exercise the playoffs are starting now which means they wouldn’t have Porzingis, but we’d still be getting Giannis at MSG which would be cool. Also the Knicks are like the best basketball team on the planet right now and this may be the only time they would be considered favorites. And hey, Kevin Durant, you want to join a team next year? How about a 2 seed?

Celtics vs Pistons

For whatever reason, Andre Drummond loves taking shots at the Celtics. Whether it’s Jaylen Brown or Al Horford, he loves running his mouth against them. That would add to some fun playoff drama, and also with Blake looking healthy I think that provides a certain challenge for this Celtics team that wants to start small. These two teams always play each other well it feels like, so this would definitely be a first round series that would go 7 games.

Now this would be crazy. Imagine no Lakers, Thunder or Rockets and instead some Suns and Clippers? That would bring so much chaos I almost would prefer it. Also Warriors without homecourt in the first round would be pretty insane too (not that it would matter). In terms of matchups, there are fun ones here to

Pelicans vs Jazz

This would be a series loaded with talent on both sides. How would a top defense like UTA handle AD? It feels like this is the sort of matchup that the Pelicans get smoked in, then we immediately have AD rumors. We all know that’s going to happen no matter how the Pelicans get eliminated, but it this series would be fun as hell to watch.

Suns vs Warriors

The Suns would get killed, but it’d still be a chance to see Booker/Ayton go up against the best and I for one would find that entertaining. I’m pretty sure Devin Booker said the days of missing the playoffs were over, and frankly if things ended today he’d be right. They may not last long, but they’d be in.

Spurs vs Nuggets

You may not be aware of this, but every Nuggets fan is. The Spurs are DEN’s boogey man. All time record of 116-67 against the Nuggets, SA has won 5 of 7, but the Nuggets did win the last two meetings. It appears through 1 game that DEN has figured out how to not puke on themselves, and that offense we know can explode at any minute. It’s also pretty telling that SA is a 7 seed, because let’s face it this is probably where they will finish, and chances are they are going to be facing a high powered offense. In this exercise, that team just happens to play in the Mile High.

So in the end, there will be games tonight and these standings will change, making this blog utterly useless. But again, I’m just trying to give some fanbases out there reasons to be happy today. Some of you look great and came out and played much better than anyone expected. Knowing that it’ll be a long year, I just wanted to give you an idea of how the other half lives. I am a firm believer in if you can envision your success it increases the chances of it actually happening, so best of luck to you all moving forward. No matter what happens, just remember that on October 19, 2018 you were one of the best teams in the league.