By Michael Samaha, columnist
Basketball is a team sport. For the first time in recent history, the NBA standings are beginning to reflect that sentiment. The season is a little past the midway point, and we are heading into the All-Star break this weekend. We have teams without superstars pulling away from the pack, other teams with big names who are underperforming and teams who are purposely losing to improve their odds when it comes to the draft lottery in May.
The Atlanta Hawks are leading the Eastern Conference by a healthy margin with little-known Al Horford, Jeff Teague and Paul Millsap making the impact. Mike Budenholzer, the Hawks’ head coach, is a descendent of current San Antonio Spurs Head Coach Gregg Popovich’s coaching style. Budenholzer has the Hawks playing the same style of basketball that was successful for the Spurs last year in their Championship season. This style involves using a deep roster and not highlighting any single player at any point. The offense works to get the best, most efficient shot possible, no matter which player is taking it.
Other young, talented teams are also hitting their strides. The Toronto Raptors, Washington Wizards, Houston Rockets and Portland Trail Blazers are all top-four seeds in the playoffs in their respective conferences. The trendy preseason picks for each conference are struggling more than predicted. The Chicago Bulls happen to be the current four-seed in the weak Eastern Conference, but their record would have them as the eight-seed in the much stronger Western Conference. The newly rebuilt Cleveland Cavaliers go from winning streaks to losing streaks and back to winning streaks again, leaving them as the five-seed in the East. The Oklahoma City Thunder have had to deal with injuries to superstars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, and this has them two games out of the last spot in the West. And in a brutal Western Conference, it’ll be really tough to fight their way into a playoff spot.
Second-year Head Coach Jason Kidd has a talentless Milwaukee Bucks team playing very good defense, so much so that they are currently in a playoff spot. This is all without their top draft pick Jabari Parker, who is out for the season with a torn ACL. First-year Head Coach Steve Kerr took over an already talented Golden State Warrior squad, but has somehow gotten it to play even more effectively and hold the league’s top record at 41-9. All-Star Klay Thompson and MVP-candidate Stephen Curry have the hot-shooting Warriors on their way to the top seed in the NBA playoffs.
Teams like the Philadelphia 76ers, New York Knicks, Los Angeles Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves are trending in the opposite direction and fighting for the league’s worst record, to have a better chance to secure a top pick in the draft. The Timberwolves and 76ers are developing a lot of young talent and gathering future draft picks. The Knicks and Lakers came into the season hoping to be competitive teams, but as the season went on, the coaches realized their teams weren’t good at all. New York and Los Angeles began dumping their better players to teams hoping to compete, benching better players and using injuries as excuses to keep stars out longer than they needed to be. The goal behind this tactic is to create some room in the salary cap to sign stars who become free agents at the end of the season and get a high draft pick who has the potential to turn into some kind of valuable player in the future.
With about 30 games left in the regular season and an entire four rounds of playoffs, there are still so many stories left, award races left to be settled and more playoff positions to be fought over. For the first time in years, the always-exciting NBA playoffs might not be dictated by those select few players who have their own shoe line, but by those who are willing to put aside personal glory and work as a team.
-Michael Samaha can be reached at [email protected].
