These NBA Playoff Matchups Are Insulting to the Fans; NBA Should Be Embarrassed
By Bobby Burack
The NBA playoffs begin tomorrow, but no need to alter all your weekend plans. It will be the start of another horrendous first round of the NBA postseason. The eight matchups we get this season all project to be short, boring, predictable, and a major waste of time. And there is no LeBron James to save them this year.
Each one of these lack intrigue. In the East, Pistons-Bucks is a major mismatch and features nothing to get pumped up about. The Magic and Raptors are two teams the majority of NBA fans don’t care about and, in Orlando’s case, a team that has no shot of winning anything. The Pacers were never going to beat the Celtics. And now, without Victor Oladipo, it won’t even be a competitive series. The matchup between the Nets and 76ers looks to be the most interesting in the conference, but the Nets are not good enough to win this thing and the series will prove to be a drag if it goes past five games. Yawn.
As for the West, it is even worse. Neither the Spurs nor Nuggets are any threat and this series, on paper, isn’t any good. Portland is allergic to playoff success and now without Jusuf Nurkić, they don’t pose much of a challenge to anyone. The way-too-long seven-game series the NBA forces us through will prove to be a mistake again once the Rockets/Jazz and Warriors/Clippers series get underway. Houston and Golden State are too good; they could lose three games and not a single person would feel like they are in any danger of losing. They won’t even lose that many, though. We are looking at a number of quick, emotionless, and even pointless series here.
Speaking of the Warriors, they have ensured us that the later rounds will lack intrigue, again. Let’s just be real, as much as the NBA-loving media (imagine if the NFL playoffs were this bad) tries to preach and push that every single NBA game is groundbreaking and the stories are an art, Golden State has ruined the NBA. Do you know why television writers put “Spoiler Alert” in their pieces? Because people don’t want to know the endings before watching it. Everyone knows the Warriors are winning again and there is literally no suspense surrounding it. If there was, Kevin Durant’s impending free agency wouldn’t have been the story since October 3.
There was a time where the start of the NBA playoffs meant something, that is not the case right now. And if they continue to let over half the teams in, have seven-game series early on, with a team as overpowering as the Warriors are, it won’t be getting better any time soon. Man, do we need Durant to be a Knick…
Be better, NBA.