The regular season of the NBA comes to and now its playoff time. This season brought significant change to the league- mew faces on new teams, new stories all with one goal of winning it all.
A lot of change happened this season with big trades, unfortunate injuries and teams going through stages of change. The MVP race being extremely close between two players, Oklahoma City Point Guard, Shai-Gilgeous Alexander and Denver Nugget Center, Nikola Jokic.
The league saw many different big names move around like Karl Anthony Towns, Jimmy Butler, Julius Randle, Zach Lavine, Mikal Bridges, De’Aaron Fox and more all landing to new destinations. There was one trade that broke the NBA world around midnight of February 2. This trade sent stars Anthony Davis to the Dallas Mavericks and Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers.
The trade came completely out of nowhere and completely changed the landscape for these two teams and the rest of the league. Mr. Bruno, a science teacher at John Dewey gave his candid reaction to the trade, saying “I didn’t really care because LeBron [James] doesn’t carry the team- even if the Lakers get through [to the NBA Finals] the Celtics will beat them.”
Towards the middle of the season, another big change was made by Commissioner Adam Silver changing the actual format of the all star game itself. The event introduced a new idea to the action packed weekend: a pick-up stylew basketball tournament.
Unfortunately, this backfired as it was seen as a failure from the Basketball community and players. In response, Silver said he will go back to the old format that was put in place.
There were many more surprises in the league that season like the Detroit Pistons who just last year had a record of 14-68 and lost 28 straight games which tied the most consecutive records in NBA history. They’ve turned it around by securing a playoff spot and tripling their total wins from last season. On the other side, the Cleveland Cavaliers who were good last season, exceeded expectations and easily earned the first seed in the Eastern Conference.
Darius Sim, a senior on the John Dewey High School Basketball team expressed his thoughts on the Cavs season, saying “They’re having a great season, they haven’t had a season like this since Lebron was on the team. It’s exciting to know that they’re the number one seed.” Sim is proud of the Cavs, and has hopes that they may win the championship this year for the first time since 2016.
The reigning NBA champions Boston Celtics’ retained their good form throughout the season which led them to the two-seed right behind the Cleveland Cavaliers. Our two local teams had polar opposite seasons though. The Knicks earned the 3 seed with a record of 51-31 in search of their first NBA title in 52 years. While the Nets were a much lower seed, 12th seed with a record of 26-56. The Nets seemingly had different ambitions seeking for a higher pick in this draft in hopes for an Emerging star in Cooper Flagg From Duke University.
On the darker side of things there were many injuries that started to pile up towards the end of the year for players all around the league. Joel Embiid, Jaden Ivey, Damian Lillard, Paul George, Tyrese Maxey, Victor Wembanyama and many others who’s seasons were unfortunately plagued with injuries that eventually led to them being out for the rest of the season. All of these injuries of key players definitely affected some teams in a very negative way. For example the Philadelphia 76ers landed former All-star Paul George in the offseason but, with injuries all throughout their roster they finished as the 13th seed with a record of 24-58 a massively disappointing season.
For the hardcore and casual fan this season has been a rollercoaster ride. With trades and unexpected moves happening all around the league, With so many more exciting events still yet to come. You won’t want to miss this. Catch the next game of playoff action tonight, when the Minnesota Timberwolves host the Golden State Warriors for Game 2 of the conference semifinals.
