This is how a lot of teams feel at the end of the year: mad. If you're not in the playoffs or awaiting most likely the #1 pick in the draft next year, you're probably a little disappointed.
But even if you aren't, the end of the regular season is pretty much a joke in any sport with a playoff system (If you're anti-BCS, this is one point where you lose an argument). When you're dealing with sports that play a ton of games (baseball - 162, basketball - 82), the last 1-20 games could be vacation days. So while some teams show effort for the last 2 weeks of the year, most don't - which makes it a horrible team to judge a team, even for the next year.
So we'll go through some teams that had some bright spots that weren't really bright spots and some teams that had really bad weeks that weren't really that horrible.
First, the bright spots.
The Cleveland Cavaliers, in another move which showed how smart of a team we are, won 6 of their last 12 games. Brilliant. We were in line for the #1 pick in the draft next year AND another top ten pick, but instead we go on a run and knock ourselves out of the lottery contention. Now maybe that means we weren't giving up the last few games of the year; we wanted to finish strong. In all levels but professional, I can see why you would want to do that. I'd instruct my own players to play that hard, but not if I coached an NBA team. "But Aaron, that means that we're not as bad of a team as we seemed the whole year. We finally got it together." Really? You think the teams we beat were even putting up a fight? Let's take a look at who we beat:
Washington Wizards...that's a tough one.
Detroit Pistons...they might be the only team in worse shape going forward than the Cavs.
Toronto Raptors...another horrible team.
Charlotte Bobcats...bad team that had an even more disappointing year.
Miami Heat...good win, but let's face it: we had some extra motivation to win this one while the Heat had no motivation to even show up.
Detroit Pistons...again.
Out of all these teams, how many are playoff teams? One...and like I said, they were more worried about resting their starters because they're not deep. Wade has been dealing with injuries, they're not worried about a team they beat by 30 the last time they played them. So beating 4 crappy teams (one of them twice) along with an unmotivated Miami Heat (who we already had a grudge against) team should give me cause to rejoice? I don't think so. Our reward? Probably a 2nd pick in the draft when we could've had 1st. Great job, Cavaliers.
Second, the Utah Jazz. I know about this situation because I live in Utah. So what happened this year to the most stable organization possibly in professional sports? They used their 8th pick in the draft to select the slow, white guy (memories of Ostertag anyone?), their long-tenured head coach resigned, and they traded their only star player. This year was a disaster for the Utah Jazz. So now, Jazz fans and analysts/fans are looking for some positives, some reasons to be excited for this new team. The first thing they point to is that they got Devin Harris & Derrick Favors. Okay, I'll give you Favors as a possible All-Star...keyword POSSIBLE. And Devin Harris hasn't been able to do anything by himself. He is becoming one of the more overrated players in the league. He didn't do anything in Jersey, and in Dallas he played with Dirk. When he was the 1st or 2nd guy, he hasn't done much. And he's nowhere near Williams level. So you gave away your only star for a few guys who may become decent players. All of this stemmed from fans blaming Williams for Sloan's resignation. Are you kidding me?!
Next, fans point to Gordon Hayward. Arguably the worst rookie selection of the 1st round, Hayward had a monster performance the last game of the year. Keywords: last game of the year. They played Denver who had basically mailed it in. In fact, you could make the argument that they were trying to get a LOWER seed by losing more games in order to play Dallas in the 1st round instead of a hot Oklahoma City team. Towards the end of the year, they went 1-0 against Dallas and 0-2 against OKC. So Hayward had a great game against a team who sat out basically their 7 best players: Felton, Lawson (injury), Gallinari, Harrington, Anderson, Nene, Afflalo. You beat the worst 6 players on the Nuggets: great job.
So in summary, the last games of the year don't really matter much. Anything can happen. The Colts sit out Manning. Kobe and the Lakers take a break to get ready for the playoffs. It doesn't matter.
The other bright spots were the Warriors and the Wizards who went 6-4 in their last 10 games. Not as bright as it seems.
Now it's time for the teams who, on paper, look horrible going into the postseason. As if we didn't see this coming...it only happens every year.
The defending Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics go below .500 in their last 13 games. This is what they did last year and everyone counted them out. Anyone care to do the same this time?
The #1 San Antonio Spurs, 4-time NBA champions in the last 15 years, lose 8 of their last 12 games to finish the year. What a collapse!! Really? Spurs fans shouldn't freak out because of that nor should they freak out about their game 1 loss against Memphis. They're going to be fine.
Same thing goes for the Lakers and the Hawks, both teams that mailed in the end of their season. That's what you can do when you're guarenteed a spot in the playoffs. So to the teams at the bottom: worry. To the teams at the top: don't worry. The last 10 games don't mean much.
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