The world according to Jim:
• When the NBA decided to take a page from the NCAA tournament playbook and make the play-in round a permanent feature in 2021, I initially considered it a gimmick, a way to inflate the postseason and satisfy the TV partners.
• OK, I miscalculated. Consider not just Sunday’s final day of the regular season but the entire final week. Yes, the system is still imperfect, because until the NBA adopts a stern attitude (pun intended, as we’ll show) toward teams sitting their best players, there’s an imbalance between teams playing for something and those who aren’t.
But on Sunday alone the matchups for the play-in games and for the first round in the West came down to four games, and it wasn’t until the Minnesota-New Orleans game ended that we knew for sure who was going where.
It might be artificially created suspense, true. But it keeps the audience engaged, and isn’t that the point? ...
• Remember, the original play-in was a concession to the COVID-19 interruption of the 2019-20 season, and the unequal number of games played once play resumed in the Orlando bubble that July. Portland was in eighth at 35-39, Memphis in ninth at 34-39, and so the two played one extra game with the winner — Portland, 126-122 — moving on.
So if one play-in game is good, five are that much better, right? ...
• As for the Lakers’ chances of polishing off Minnesota tonight and getting to a best-of-seven first-round date with Memphis? They improved when the Timberwolves suspended center Rudy Gobert for one game Monday after he threw a punch at teammate Kyle Anderson during a timeout Sunday. With Gobert and Jaden McDaniels (broken hand after punching a wall) both sidelined ... well, this should be a reminder to the entire NBA of the importance of impulse control.
• I still think the play-in games should be considered part of the NBA postseason, in the same manner that the NCAA’s First Four are considered an official part of March Madness™. Alas, they are not. ...
• Oh, and as for tanking: The Dallas Mavericks should get fined for their dump job against Chicago on Friday, not only for losing to miss the play-in and keep their first-round pick but for doing so in such a clumsy manner, sitting Kyrie Irving but playing Luka Doncic one quarter against the Bulls. ...
• In a related note, given the way Dallas went from going all-in with the Irving trade to turtling at season’s end, what’s the over/under on when Doncic will ask to be traded? I say June 30. ...
• What would the late David Stern have done? Here’s a hint: In April of 1990 the then-commissioner slapped then-Lakers coach Pat Riley with a $25,000 fine for benching Magic Johnson and James Worthy for the final regular-season game at Portland, with the Lakers already assured of the best record in the league, 63-19.
Riley was livid, saying: “If (the league) is going to start getting in the way of who I want to play and when I want to play them, maybe they ought to come out here and put on the coach’s shirt themselves.” As it turned out, the Lakers were knocked out by Phoenix in the second round and Riley resigned less than a month later. ...
• It has been a week, but I can’t dismiss the thought: When the Rams’ Aaron Donald pointed at his ring finger following the February 2022 Super Bowl, no one seemed to have a problem with it. When LSU’s Angel Reese did so after the women’s national championship game last Sunday — and directed it at Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, adding wrestler John Cena’s “can’t see me” gesture for good measure — the social media etiquette police had way too much to say.
Is there really any reason for the pearl-clutching beyond the obvious? ...
• Incidentally, let’s hope that (a) the huge uptick in TV ratings and attention toward the women’s tournament is a permanent trend, and (b) that Reese and Clark someday become the WNBA equivalent of Magic vs. Bird. ...
• Still, until the women’s pro game in this country becomes truly professional in terms of travel and other player amenities, this quote from UCLA women’s coach Cori Close to the New York Times is instructive.
Close said a WNBA coach whose identity she would not reveal discussed Charisma Osborne’s decision whether to turn pro or stay at UCLA an extra year this way: “Does Charisma want to make more (NIL) money and stay in college and get massages, fly charter, have everything paid for, have a nutritionist and have her own trainers that are paid for? Or does she want to have none of those things and fly Southwest with us?” ...
• As it turned out, Osborne opted to use that COVID year of eligibility and remain a Bruin, and maybe by the time she enters the WNBA the travel conditions will be truly big league. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced on Monday that the league would pay for charters for regular season back-to-back games (of which there will be five league-wide this season) and for the playoffs. ...
• It’s a start, and they’ve come a long way as well. Remember, it was only 2017 when the Sparks and Minnesota Lynx not only flew commercial from L.A. to Minneapolis-St. Paul for the deciding game of the WNBA Finals but had to share a plane. ...
• How art imitates life (and a spoiler alert if you haven’t yet gotten to this season of “Ted Lasso”): The international superstar who inexplicably joins AFC Richmond and begins bending it to his will in episode three bears a striking resemblance to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the international superstar who joined the Galaxy in 2018 and ... yeah, you remember.
If the man bun doesn’t give it away, the depiction of the fictional star’s first goal lets you know that the show’s creators were paying attention. (And Zlatan’s real-life goal, against LAFC in his first MLS game, is also a reminder of how much things have changed over the years with L.A.’s two franchises.)
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