The Battle For Two Extra Home Gates

W L GB New Jersey 27 38 — Chicago 26 38 0.5 Atlanta 26 38 0.5 Indiana 25 39 1.5 Charlotte 24 40 2.5 Milwaukee 23 42 4.0 Yea, this is not exactly the Western Conference. The team in the lead for the 8th spot has been taking for a month and still can’t get … Continue reading “The Battle For Two Extra Home Gates”

       W  L  GB
New Jersey 27 38 ---
Chicago    26 38 0.5
Atlanta    26 38 0.5
Indiana    25 39 1.5
Charlotte  24 40 2.5
Milwaukee  23 42 4.0

Yea, this is not exactly the Western Conference. The team in the lead for the 8th spot has been taking for a month and still can’t get into the lottery. Indiana and Milwaukee are bad teams that just can’t find a way to lose out of this. Atlanta and Charlotte are not much better, but they both desperately want even a token playoff appearance. The Hawks even made a deadline deal to make it, and they still can’t do it (because they’ve played awful on the road.)

And then we have the Bulls. This season has been somewhat more miserable than the the 98-03 stretch. In between the unending losing, you could there were bursts of improvement and progress. No one ever got to the level they were drafted for, but they were plateauing at worst. Watching this team come all together and implode under it’s own weight. This team will be blown up in the off season and deserves to be, but no one’s looking forward to nth iteration of rebuilding

beta: the 1998 season where they didn’t even bother
1: Brand, Artest, Miller
2: Chandler, Curry
3: Crawford, Jay Williams, a motorcycle: last part might have been a flaw
4: Hinrich, Deng, Gordon

Gordon’s so gone. Hinrich might be traded if they can get an offer. Who knows what’ll happen with Deng. And everyone else will get swept up in it.

(sidenote: At least if they were going to lose all the time, they could be a more fun team when they do it. Such bad basketball)

Anyway, that’s the near certain future, but it’s still the future. The NBA decided to make them play all 82 games this year, even though the season was just about knocking service time off contracts once the Wallace trade went down. And since no one in the East will grab it, the Bulls have a good shot of making the playoffs.

Except, given we know they’re going to want to rebuild, we know they’d want the best draft pick possible to help them along. Not making the playoffs gives them a shot at a really good draft pick.

Except, the whole idea is to get in the playoffs and then win the whole thing. The 9th seed in the East will probably end picking 10 or worse, unless they win the lottery. Draft picks are nice, but draft picks around where a non-lottery pick would be located aren’t going to be franchise players, and aren’t going to be much better if the Bulls finish 8th. (Might even be the same player, depending on needs.)

The Bulls have a tiny chance of making a playoff run. The Bulls have a tiny chance of winning the lottery. (On Thursday, ESPN’s playoff odds gave them a 7 times better chance of winning the lottery, but it was .1% vs .7%, not big numbers either way.) I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be rooting for at this point.

Even though the Celtics would thrash them, I think the odds of winning the lottery are low enough that’s it not worth dropping into it for a minuscule chance at a high draft pick. (I’m not totally sold on the draft class either, and may end up eating those words.) I figured by this point that the math would work out the other way, but the barrier of entry in the playoffs keeps on dropping.