It's really hard for me to fathom that any NBA management team that was actually watching basketball over the past few years could have ever thought Westbrook was a good idea for the Lakers. So they either weren't watching basketball at all or they were so bound to LeBron that they couldn't possibly say no to him (or both I guess).

If the Wolves get Memphis in the first round, watch them make it a real series and potentially even win it. At the very least, they'll push it to 6 games minimum. Likely 7. And they've got a real shot at knocking them off outright.

Secondly, it's the principle of the thing. A 30-win team has an even lower win percentage than a 6-10 NFL team (back before the 17th game was added).

I'm of the belief that the regular season has to matter. You have to win your regular season games. It's unfortunate that the NBA has had so many sub-500 teams make the playoffs over the years, and now they want to encourage the even lower dregs on the ladder to suddenly fall ass over tea kettle into the playoffs?

I know they can't adjust on the fly and say, "Not enough teams crossed the win threshold for the playoffs, so we just won't have those seeds competing." But this horseshit they've concocted is bogus and dumb.

If they wanted a play-in round so damn badly, they should have shrunk the playoff field to 6 or 7 teams per conference, added in first round byes, and then had the bottom feeders of the original 8-team playoff bracket fight for the last spots via a play-in.

You just know that a 10th-best record team is going to get into the playoffs one of these years. It might happen this year. And people will celebrate it and go, "Neat! That's so cool!" Not me. I would hate to see a 5 or 6 win NFL team get into the playoffs, and I hate seeing sub-30 win NBA teams get in.

Win your damn games.

And Westbrook took shots at EVERYONE during his exit interview.

He was blaming Vogel for not being supportive (which is bullshit as Vogel was one of the last supporters he had in the organization) and then said something to the effect of that LeBron and Davis were being false in support of him. He was asked about how they said they bought in to taking steps to allow him to play his style of game and responded with "Yeah, they said it, but that wasn't true. Let's be honest..."

I mean this was the single most predictable outcome in NBA history and yet it still happened. It's all just so friggen absurd.

Washington STILL can't believe they moved that contract.

And got some actual value back in the exchange, no less.

Any one of the three guys they got back would've been more valuable than Westbrook and that was obvious before the deal was even made.

Westbrook was essentially a dead-on replacement level player this year. And only got there, amazingly, through his defense. Which was lackluster at best. But that's how ungodly unproductive he was offensively. He actually produced a negative win share offensively.

He was very probably the worst player in the NBA this year. And anyone that was paying attention KNEW it was a possibility. And an outright certainty that he'd be bad - it was just a question of HOW bad.

Again, Lebron just corn-holed this franchise something awful.

Someone will take on Westbrook's contract. Its an expiring deal. Can clear a bunch of a cap space in a hurry.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...layer-ratings/

538 had him at a -0.6 WAR (good for 228th out of 250 players). Atrocious stuff.

He was already 185th out of 250 in that stat last year (1.0 WAR) so it was clearly trending in that direction.

God the nets are so unlikeable. I feel like they are one move away from signing the pharma bro.

who is starting the playoff thread?

Anthony Edwards is fo real

Towns was completely choking this entire game and then just stupidly fouled out with 7 minutes left (in what was one of the more predictable foul outs ever).

Wolves have been so much better with Towns off the floor here.

WOLVES BABY!

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Patrick Beverley just won the NBA Finals 😂 <a href="https://t.co/DiR2prLcm2">pic.twitter.com/DiR2prLcm2</a></p>&mdash; Action Network (@ActionNetworkHQ) <a href="https://twitter.com/ActionNetworkHQ/status/1514098789312729089?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 13, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I always appreciate Pat Bevs energy, but it’s time for Ja to remind him why the Grizz didn’t need him. (Although, truthfully, I really wish they kept him this past offseason.) Going to be a fun series.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Ja had words for Pat Bev after this play <a href="https://t.co/zXudzUach8">pic.twitter.com/zXudzUach8</a></p>&mdash; Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) <a href="https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1481832551257821184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 14, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>