The NBA Play-In Tournament is less than a month away, the next time any basketball games of real consequence will be played. This regular NBA season, for the most part, is done. I think it has been a pretty fun one. A lot of people disagree with me, but that’s part of what I’m here to write about.
In a world filled with far too much meta-commentary about basketball, and too little direct commentary on the game itself, I’m going to take a week to add to the overflowing first pile.
First, is my team good? The Utah Jazz have won 16 games. They’d be a great NFL team!
This has been a pretty harsh throwaway year for a franchise that is now a couple years removed from interesting basketball. I’m not mad. Granted, I would be happier if any of the half-dozen first-round picks the Jazz have made over the last few years had shown some sort of upside. I will be very happy anyways if Utah Captures the Flagg.
Otherwise, this NBA season has a healthy count of existing great teams and great rising teams. Typically, that’s the combination of storylines that fans get excited about. Boston and Denver both have chances at building real legacy, and Oklahoma City is the quintessential upstart foil looking to launch its own run. Cleveland strikes me as a bit random but hopefully will make the Eastern Conference playoffs interesting. Most of the big market teams are also good! When was the last time the Knicks, Lakers, and Celtics were all top-3 seeds?
The NBA is, however, overloaded with the aging star plus mismatched supporting cast archetype. The Clippers and, particularly, the Suns seem to be in directionless phases oriented around past-prime Hall of Famers. The Lakers and Warriors might be escaping this group, though I’m not sure I’d favor them over the younger and higher seeded rosters in the West. I can’t tell with Milwaukee. Doc Rivers is their coach, and it is April soon.
I wish Philadelphia’s season hadn’t gone the way it did. Especially if we won’t see Joel Embiid at his 2023 level again. They are now tanking, and fingers are being pointed everywhere, but I’m not sure what I’d have done differently. Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, and Paul George are a fantastic trio on paper. At least McCain looked really good.
One thing I haven’t liked about this season is the overall state of player progression and regression. How many breakouts were there? How many All-Stars even improved? Wembanyama was the best story, and then his season abruptly ended. Anthony Edwards, LaMelo Ball, Luka Doncic, Tyrese Haliburton, and Paolo Banchero are all high-profile, young players who are playing roughly at or below the level they did last season. Cade Cunningham and Evan Mobley were maybe the two young stars that took major steps up.
I apparently must mention the rate of three-point shots, which has become a magnet for unending attacks on the state of the sport. Two things annoy me: one, that so many of the arguments made for the ‘three-point problem’ are not based in evidence (any line of thought that players are just running up and down the court and jacking up deep shots with nothing else going on is so obviously flawed), and two, that this is why ratings are down. Sports network talking heads taking segments to discuss their personal relationships with LeBron James might be a bigger reason no one is excited about Oklahoma City or Cleveland. No one knows they are really, really good.
I also find it strange how often NBA fans discuss its ratings. What’s the concern? You aren’t a team owner and you aren’t an advertising executive. You’re already following the games, and the NBA just inked an incredibly lucrative 11-year television deal. Seems like a manufactured fuss.
The ‘everyone plays the same’ idea is ridiculous. Good luck watching any basketball before 2015.
With such a clear assumption that the important part of the regular season is mostly wrapped up, I’ll echo something that I’ve heard bounced around a lot lately: the season is too long. The best teams at the moment fortunately project to be healthy going into the postseason, but so frequently the last few years this has not been the case (and there are still unfortunate exceptions right now: Kyrie Irving, Victor Wembanyama, Philadelphia, etc.). And there is now a strong precedent for some major injuries to hit once the postseason begins. I’d be surprised if any shortening does happen, but I think it would go a long way to relieving the unreal stress playing 82 games of modern basketball is putting on players. Defending and initiating post ups for 48 minutes was a lot less tiring than the constant swirl that most offenses resemble in 2025.
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