Here We Go Again

You knew it was coming, right? It was way too easy for people to just fall in line and agree that the Trail Blazers would be insane not to take Greg Oden. So now people like Bill Simmons are calling for the Blazers to take Kevin Durant, and even Blazers' GM Kevin Pritchard seems to be sending mixed signals about who he is going to spend the pick on, saying:

"We're gonna look at everything," Pritchard said. "I think what's going to be important is putting them in a position out here where we can see both their strengths and their weaknesses with our coach putting an emphasis in those areas. Because in a game, all you see is a coach putting their players in a (position) of strength."

To play devil's advocate for a moment, here are the reasons why people are suddenly jumping on the Durant to Portland bandwagon:

- The Blazers already have Zach Randolph and LaMarcus Aldridge inside, so they don't need Oden.
- If the Blazers do take Oden, they would have to dump Randolph for cheap.
- Oden might have some long term health issues with his wrist.
- Oh Golly! Kevin Durant is so good!

Granted, these arguments all have varying degrees of validity. These arguments however, and the people that make them, are ignoring some simple facts:

Fact #1: Big Men Win Rings
Take a look at recent NBA history. The Spurs have won 4 titles with Tim Duncan being the main reason for those wins. Shaq has 4 titles in recent years as well. Hakeem won 2 titles while Jordan was retired. To put it simply, NBA titles in the past 15 years have been won by teams led by either a dominant big man or Michael Jordan. (The Pistons being the one exception, though one could argue the Wallace Brothers were the key to their win.) Greg Oden just happens to be a dominant big man; Kevin Durant does not happen to be the next Jordan. Try this one on for size: do you think that Durant is better than LeBron? If not then after seeing LeBron fall to Tim Duncan in this year's Finals how can you reasonably advocate picking Durant over Oden?

Fact #2: Reggie Bush Is Better Than Mario Williams
Stay with me on this one. Two years ago the Houston Texans had the easiest choice in the world at the top of the draft. Reggie Bush was sitting there having just won the Heisman Trophy and producing more insane highlights on a college football field than any man since Barry Sanders. So what did the Texans do? They decided that since they had a decent running back in Domanick Davis (Zach Randolph) and a weakness at defensive end (small forward) that they should take Williams (Durant) over Bush (Oden). Granted, Durant is a better football player than Mario Williams, but the comparison still holds true. The Saints actions in that draft are the model which the Blazers should follow. Even though New Orleans still had Deuce McCallister they took Bush anyway, and the Blazers would be wise to follow their example even though they already have Randolph and Aldridge. If the Blazers talk themselves out of drafting Oden they will be cursing themselves in four or five years when Oden and Ray Allen have a championship and the Blazers are merely one of the highest scoring teams in the league.

Fact #3: Joe Dumars > Dominique Wilkins
The header on this one could also read "Tim Duncan > Steve Nash" or "Shaq > Vince Carter". Point being, people that are rooting for the Blazers to take Durant over Oden are rooting for excitement over actual common sense. Is Durant really any better than Carmelo Anthony, the last freshman small forward to take the country by storm? At least Anthony won the national championship, something that cannot be said of Durant. People that want Durant over Oden are the same people that think the Spurs are boring and want the Phoenix Suns to be NBA champs every season. They are missing the point. Substance > Style.

So will the Blazers take Durant? I don't think so, not just because it would be the wrong move but also because Pritchard would find himself out of the NBA for life if it didn't work out. In this case Oden is both the safe pick, and more importantly, the right one.

Enough Is Enough

I have absolutely had it. I am through being quiet about this issue. Seriously, the NBA Playoffs has me all up in a lather.

And no, it is not because of the Finals.

And no, it is not because the West is so much better than the East.

It is because of stupid articles like this, this, and this latest one by Bill Simmons calling for a radical restructuring of the NBA Playoffs.

To borrow from Hollywood, these ideas are just dumb, dumber, and dumberer.

First, lets examine the reason why these three intelligent men (I am honestly not being sarcastic, I generally enjoy both Hollinger and Simmons, although I am not familiar with Fitzgerald.) would propose changing the playoff format. You don't have to be a genius to see that the best basketball teams come from the Western Conference. Just look at the standings, where 5 of the top 6 NBA teams (by record) were in the West. The assumption made by these men though, is that the East is damned to mediocrity for the foreseeable future, especially since both Kevin Durant and Greg Oden are headed out West. Is this a fair assumption on their parts, or is it merely an extremely reactionary stance given the particular discrepancy in records that has been seen this season? I'll go with the latter, and let me explain why. The three above authors generally chose to ignore the fact that if Detroit had won Game 7 of the 2005 NBA Finals that we would have experienced three consecutive Eastern Conference NBA champions. Think about that. We are one game from an Eastern Conference three-peat, and all of a sudden because of one uncompetitive Finals matchup everyone is labeling the Eastern Conference as a lost cause and calling for the destruction of the current playoff system? Please. Also, lets examine the records a little further in the past, like last season where the East boasted the team with the best regular season record (Detroit) and both the East and the West boasted three teams with 50 or more wins. The season before that the West did indeed dominate the regular season in a similar fashion to this year, having six 50 win teams to the East's two. There is however, an important detail that weakens Simmons' argument. In that season, 2004-2005, two of the Western Conference teams with 50 plus wins were Sacramento and Seattle, and in the East Chicago, Cleveland, and Orlando all failed to make the playoffs. So how can these three men argue that there is no chance for change in the NBA hierarchy when those five teams have fluctuated so greatly in the span of only two seasons?

One of the other prevailing arguments is that the West is set to maintain its current level of dominance due to its extreme advantage in terms of stars. It is true that the West does have a large number of elite players, including Dirk, Kobe, Duncan, Nash, Yao, and KG along with the incoming additions of Oden and Durant. It is foolish however, to ignore the talent pool in the East. Don't the Cavs happen to have the best wing player in the league in LeBron James? Didn't Dwayne Wade lead his team to a title last season? Did you see the clutch performances put up by Gilbert Arenas throughout this season? Aren't Chris Bosh and Dwight Howard two of the three best young power forwards in the NBA? (Amare being the third) And if I am not mistaken, aren't their rumors abounding that KG, Kobe, and Shawn Marion among others could all be headed East this offseason? Point being, the alleged cap in talent between the two conferences is nothing more than a media hyped mirage, one that certainly was not being discussed too heavily when the Pistons and Heat were winning championships in recent years.

Now onto what these three men are actually proposing to do. Their general consensus is that the playoffs should move to a 16 team bracket, with the first round matchups featuring East vs West matchups, or in Simmons scenario being seeded solely by record except for the top team in each conference being assured a top two seed. These authors believe that such a system would prevent matchups such as the Spurs and Suns this season, where arguably the top two teams in the league face off before the Finals. The fundamental problem with these arguments is that, well, they miss the point.

Here is a major news flash: the purpose of the NBA Finals is not to give you the most entertaining matchup, it is to crown a champion, who often times does not happen to be the team with the best regular season record.

Often times yes, two really good teams will face off before the NBA Finals. It happens. Does it somehow wreck the sport? No. Did the world end last season because Dallas and San Antonio faced off in the second round? No. Is the NBA going to close up shop because San Antonio and Phoenix played in the second round this year? No. Are the Spurs not a worthy NBA champion because they never faced the Mavs in this year's playoffs? Also no. As long as the top teams are in the playoffs somewhere, things will work themselves out. If you are to extend the logic of restructuring the NBA playoffs a little further, why not just have the two teams with the best record in the regular season face off in a championship and just scrap the rest of the playoffs?

The point of the NBA playoffs, or the World Series, or the Stanley Cup, or the Super Bowl, is not to match up the two best teams in the sport from a given year. The Finals along with those other championships matchup the champions from the two respective conferences (or leagues) in that sport. Why? Well, here is the reason why: in all of those sports the conferences play an unbalanced schedule, meaning that the W-L records that result are not 100% representative of which conference is better. Take last year in the NBA for instance. There were two 60 win teams in the West, yet a 52 win Miami team won the championship. Take a look at college football this past season. All season long everyone believed that the Big 10 and their two undefeated juggernauts were the best conference in all the land. And what happened? Michigan got the crap beat out of them by a two loss USC team and Ohio State was dismantled by a one loss Florida team.

The NBA playoffs do not need to change. All sports leagues experience periods of ebb and flow, and the current NBA is no different. Should the playoffs have been changed in the 90's to make things tougher on the Bulls? Should the AFC not been allowed to play in the Super Bowl in the 90's when they had lost 13 in a row? No, these suggestions sound pretty silly, as are the suggestions that the NBA should scrap the current playoff format.