Comparing nba and nhl playoffs:
It is the best time of the year. That pocket of time where NHL and NBA seasons culminate into the final 4 to battle it out for their respective championship trophies. Both leagues offer intriguing star on star matchups in their first rounds every year. This makes sense as star players typically lead to playoff appearances (Sorry Oilers and Lakers fans). With this in mind, why is it that both the NHL and NBA playoffs suffer from apathetic periods in it where fans don’t seem to be as infatuated with it as the matchups would suggest they should. The answer differs for both league, but i think there are issues that are beginning to hurt the idea of what the playoffs ought to be. Whether or not these issues are fixable is complicated as it would involve overhauling the playoff structure which would undoubtedly upset many fans. Who woulda thought that sports fans don’t much care for change? This is the besides the point as I’m not sure changing the playoff formats would even help fix the issues. I believe there is more at play than simply poor playoff formats.
Let’s start with the NBA.
As I sit here, it is May 19, 2019. The Golden State Warriors are up 3-0 in their Western Conference Final series versus the Portland Trail Blazers. The Milwaukee Bucks are up 2-0 on the Toronto Raptors. In both instances, the favoured team has done exactly what they are expected to do, dominate. The star power is definitely there for all 4 teams. Players like Dame Lillard, Kawhi Leonard, Steph Curry and Giannis Antetokoumpo are perfect examples of this. Ask any NBA fan, and they would tell you that these guys are exciting players to watch. So why is it that I feel a certain amount of apathy towards both of these series, and for the most part the NBA playoffs as a whole? Well I’ll give you a hint; it’s the complete OPPOSITE reason of why I feel a sense of apathy towards the NHL playoffs.
The way that the game of basketball is structured in 2019, star players play anywhere from 70-100% of any given playoff game. The star player is involved in nearly every play (offence or defence) and the opposing team gameplans are more than likely centred around the 1 or 2 (or in more recent NBA seasons, 3) star players that should take the majority of the focus from the D. When one team has more of these star players, they have a higher likelihood of winning based on the fact that there are better players with better shooting %’s, rebounding etc… There are analytical metrics that I could use here to show the raw data that shows why the Lebrons and KD’s are in fact so elite, but I’m not going to because that shit bores me. But just take my word on it; more times than not, the good players are better than the average players (DUHHHH). So when teams such as the Warriors or Bucks play their first round matches against the 8th seeds in their respective conferences, nobody is expecting any sort of competitive series. I never feel quite obligated to ever watch a full game in these 1-8 matchups because I feel like it’s already over. Sure, the 8 seed might take a game or two, but that is usually just one star player who plays out of his god dam mind and puts the team on his back. Of course a player can get hot and steal a game or two, but one seeds do not lose in the NBA playoffs (except for the mavs and spurs… But Baron Davis went the fuck off in 2007 and the 2011 grizz were so dam gritty that they found a way… but i digress. lets pretend these didn’t happen for the sake of my silly argument). The point here being that the higher seeded teams typically have better players and therefore typically wins the series.
The 4 vs 5 matchups are undoubtedly the most exciting. The games are far more competitive and therefore fun to watch. But the problem with these is that you know that the winner is going to be tired and beat up after a (probably) gruelling series. And your next opponent is the one seed.
So just a quick segway here: the way my brain works is that i look ahead and can never fully enjoy the moment for what it is. I have trouble staying in the present even though the present may be something really great. I can’t help but look ahead and hypothesize what everything could potentially mean. It doesn’t seem to make sense because if something is really awesome, why wouldn’t you want to focus on it? Well that’s part of what makes me… me . Don’t I sound like a hoot?
So in terms of these basketball series, my personality extends into my observations and feelings about them. In the midst of watching these great series in the first round, I can’t help but look ahead to round 2 and be like, “Oh shit they’re just gonna get stomped in a few days by the warriors so WGAF (who gives a fuck)”… ya thats right I think in acronyms… I’m like Tom Hanks in A Beautiful Mind. But my biopic would probably be called A Depressed, Unsatisfied and Mostly Useless Mind. Starring Rob Schneider. In theatres 2035…. Rated R..
K back to the sports stuff…
So when you are watching the first two rounds of the NBA playoffs, you can kind of already see the blueprint to what the conference final will be. And even if you’re incorrect, you definitely aren’t wrong about the fact that the Warriors will be there. And you wouldn’t be wrong at all. So if you already know which team is going to the conference and NBA Finals, it makes sense why the rest of the playoff structure that precedes the conference finals don’t feel totally important. Nobody thinks that the Portland Trail Blazers really have a chance to beat the Warriors. And yes, they absolutely could win a game or two, but I mean, come on.
The Warriors are so good that it would probably take a catastrophic injury (another one, sorry boogie and KD) for the Blazers to have a legitimate chance to win. But that wouldn’t be authentic because it wouldn’t be the same warriors that we have come to know. So in that scenario, it would feel like a bit of a cop-out. But that’s such an unlikely scenario that it doesn’t really have anything to do with my argument.
So why does any of this matter and why am i just rambling about shit everyone already knows. I will tell you!!! The reason I feel apathetic toward the NBA playoffs is because it is too pre-determined. And ya of course this has been argued to the nth degree. Especially in todays NBA in which players are becoming more and more self aware of their value and their willingness to take paycuts in order to play with other star players. But over the last few years, this has started to become an issue for me. It wasn’t even a conscious thought that i had where I was like, “the nba is dumb and rigged and the Warriors are ruining the NBA so i’m going to stop watching”… In fact quite the opposite. I was so stoked to watch the Warriors when they broke onto the scene. Part of me loved the fact that they were making everybody super mad. Their entire team was just an elaborate ‘you mad bro?’ meme.
And the sadistic part of me just loved it. But in the last few years, I have found myself simply tuning in less and less to more and more of the series that I used to be completely enamoured with. I thought it might be because I was ‘maturing’ and starting to ‘broaden my horizons’ by doing other shit instead of just watching sports all night every night for the rest of my life… But then I quickly snapped out of that and noticed that I was watching Aussie Rules football at 1230 am and was able to regain my bearings.
I am who I am. and I love watching sports… and thats okay.
After this quick internal crisis about my potential and self worth, I switched my thoughts to the more important matter at hand. Why wasn’t I as enthralled with these NBA playoffs the way I used to be? Not to foreshadow or anything, but wouldn’t you know it, I had this same internal struggle with my always trusty NHL playoffs! But before I get into that, I wanna get to my ultimate point about the state of the NBA according to me.
The NBA is becoming inherently more dynastic in team structure. Teams are finding their ‘star’ players and trying to link them up with other stars in order to best compete. So when a few legendary players happen to all be on the same team it get to the point where it seems like the championship is over before it begins. Like I said before, when the Warriors first challenged for a title, and eventually won, I thought it was really cool. Anythings better than the ‘big 3’ Heat and those boring to watch Spurs teams (sorry but they were boring.) But beginning last year and ramping up into this years postseason, I did not feel the need to tune into each and every series. Not even close. I didn’t even watch a single second of the Utah Jazz series against Denver. Me 5 years ago would be plugged into every series and have a real sense for what the teams were all about. But now, I just can’t bring myself to tuning into all these games that ultimately have absolutely zero meaning or value. Sure the basketball itself can (and usually is) pretty exciting, but the allure is lost when the mystery and unpredictability is limited to an ultimately unimportant part of the playoffs. Sure you can have mild upsets, but the Warriors being the finals was nearly guaranteed once they beat the Rockets. And this is the problem. The possibility of having a 1-8 upset was always something that was a long shot and I never truly expected to happen, but in the back of my mind there was just a sliver chance that it could happen. And whether or not that was actually true is irrelevant. But the point is that as long as I thought there was a chance for an 8 seed to win a series, that was reason enough for me to tune in. And if an 8 seed can beat a one seed, why couldn’t any other team in the playoffs do it too? After all, they are higher seed, have more star players, and logically should have a better chance to win a series. So if any one team can beat any other team in any given series, of course each series seems that much more important and relevant. But fast forward to these playoffs and the way the Warriors and Bucks have manhandled all obstacles just in the way everyone predicted. My brain was subconsciously telling me to stop wasting my time and do something more useful with my time because none of it mattered. The FOMO (fear of missing out) of anything in any series used to be the thing that kept me watching every series every night. And sure this is an extreme case because I have no life and am a diehard sports fan. But i think it makes the point even clearer because he fact that I am not tuning in must mean that the majority of casual sports fan (local fans not included) sure as shit aren’t tuning in to Denver versus Utah. The fact that none of the series seem all that relevant to the ultimate championship, its no wonder that at various points these playoffs I have found myself watching F1, Aussie Rules Football, soccer, Long drive Championships and horse racing all AS OPPOSED TO an NBA and NHL playoff game. Like, I don’t know if you guys understand, but I consciously decided to watch all those things. That in and of itself was a red flag that something had changed. And the fact that I was skipping hockey games too?? Well now I knew this was serious. I understood why this was happening with basketball, but why hockey? There’s no predictability in hockey! There never has been! It’s always so exciting because anything can happen? So Why am i watching F1 instead of the leafs vs bruins? Lets examine that
In hockey, there are 5 skaters and a goalie on the ice at all times (excluding power plays and extra attackers and shit). Skaters usually take anywhere from 30-70 second shifts. That means even the best player in the league is only on the ice for half the game at the very maximum. Combine that with the fact that the game is played ON ICE and involves skaters travelling at speeds of 30 km/h. Not to mention the fact that the puck is such a shape that physics determine its bounces be random. With all this in mind, it does not take tom hanks in a beautiful mind (its a good movie) to figure out that hockey is way more random than basketball. I can remember growing up and being absolutely enthralled with the 1 vs 8 hockey matchups… They always involved the juggernaut of a team in the east and west that was loaded with plenty of household names. The Red Wings and Avs of the early 2000s come to mind. Just fucking stacked teams with Hall of Famers overflowing from their rosters. But I never felt that it was impossible for the eight seed to win that series and furthermore win the whole thing. Hockey has been and always will be very random. This is part of what makes it so exciting and why playoff hockey is and always will be the best playoffs on earth. So why wasn’t i completely and utterly glued to these series the way i once was? Well let me start by getting the playoff format issue out of the way quickly. It fucking sucks. It is supposed to promote more rivalries but all it does is punish the very good divisions and provide an illegible snapshot of the league. If you look back at the early 2000s playoffs, it’s very easy to see where the upsets occurred, who was a surprise, who was a juggernaut etc… But since the implementation of the new format, the feeling of unpredictability and randomness seems to have taken a dark and unforeseen turn. The playoff format makes the regular season seem ultimately pointless. Fighting for seeding is irrelevant because being the better team does not necessarily mean you will face the weaker team. So the first issue is that there is no clear favourite and no real upset team in the way it was prior to the format. Obviously there is a betting favourite and a betting underdog, but many of these are marginal And when you do have a juggernaut team, the inherent randomness of hockey pops its head out and has Colombus upsetting the Lightning.
While this series was happening, it seemed like a crazy upset. After all, the Lightning were just skullfucking the league all year. So when they get swept by the Blue Jackets, of course people see it as a big deal. But today is May 19, and the Blue Jackets have been out of the playoffs for about 2 weeks. Hockey is so random that you don’t even have time to jump on a bandwagon before your team is eliminated by another team in a random back and forth playoff series. Furthermore, the randomness of hockey also creates series sweeps that are unexpected. So not only do you have lower seeded teams beating better teams, they are actually demolishing them. So why is this an issue? I would argue that the NHL playoffs are too random. In nearly every series, I could see it going either way. I could see a sweep by one team. I could see a sweep by the other team. As the years have gone by and i have seen every tier of upset, the allure of the upset is both more common, but more importantly, it has never been more vague and meaningless! Just because a 2 seed loses to a 3 seed, that cannot and should not qualify as an upset. Maybe it is according to vegas, but i never feel as though one team has an automatic path to the Stanley Cup Final. Picture the NBA path to the finals as this:
And the path to the NHL finals:
While both have their advantages, neither of these mazes are ‘fun’. The first one is way too easy and you never really commit to the possibility that you may not be able to do it. The fear of not getting it is what makes it that much more special when you do get it. The opposite is true for the second maze. This one is fucking impossible. I don’t even want to pretend that I have any idea how its going to be completed. Do you see what i’m doing here? A nice little illusory exercise. Can you determine which sport may go with which maze??
The NHL playoffs are too unpredictable that pretty much every single series could be flip-flopped… Part of me feels obligated to watch two good teams go at it. But as a Flames fan, I’ve had to jump on bandwagons to keep things interesting over the years. And these bandwagons are always the underdog team. But how do you jump on a bandwagon when you could legitimately envision any team winning the cup. It takes away the element of surprise because there is no norm to begin with. Take this years first round In the NHL for example. I went 1/8 on my series picks. My friend flipped a coin and went 7/8… I’m not mad that a coin demolished me (lol). I am however a lot less intrigued with the NHL playoffs as a whole. I used to love watching great teams lose to mediocre teams because the disparity was quite apparent and you could classify certain series as “upsets”… And as much as I’d love to say that the Columbus series was an insane upset, I can’t help but chalk it up to the inherent randomness of the sport combined with the fact that the NHL is at an all time high in terms of parity. While it may seem like having ultimate randomness would make the most exciting playoffs, all it does is confuse me and make me feel as though the notion of the classic david vs goliath upset is pretty much dead. I’m not taking anything away from the players, coaches or fans of the NHL. If your teams wins the cup, that’s fucking awesome. But for some reason (and i could be completely wrong), the Avs beating my Flames this year didn’t seem so crazy. In fact, as someone that watched all 5 (what a joke) games, there was not a single point in time where I felt like were David.
In conclusion, nothing what I just said matters. I will never stop watching. It is my curse. It is my love.
-K
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