Just a few thoughts on the end of a wild NBA season. These entire playoffs were filled with chaos, upsets, and unpredictable matchups and outcomes. So here goes.
1) The Nuggets route to a title was not easy, respect the strength of the Heat.
One particularly bad take, insulting to the Nuggets and the Heat, says that this Nuggets title was not that impressive because they had an easy path in the playoffs. The simple version of this dumb argument says, in effect, the Nuggets played an 8 seed, a 4 seed, a 7 seed, and an 8 seed. So easy! Of course a quick examination shows that this is a bad argument.
The Nuggets, as the number one seed in the Western Conference, by definition play the number eight seed in the first round. Nor were the Minnesota Timberwolves, with a 42-40 record and a decent amount of talent, a particularly weak eight seed. If anything, they were probably average or slightly above average. The Nuggets then faced the number four seed Phoenix Suns, again the highest seed they could face in the second round, and a team led by two all-time great scorers, Kevin Durant and Devin Booker. Indeed, the Suns scoring duo were so impressive that they were largely favored to beat the Nuggets! How is that an easy path?
The Nuggets did play the seven seeded Lakers in the Western Conference Finals, though again a moment’s thought reveals this was not an easy matchup. Should they have played the number two seed Grizzlies, a weak and dysfunctional team that the Lakers easily dispatched in the first round? How exactly would that have been more difficult? Should they have played the defending champion Warriors, a team that the Lakers outclassed and beat in the second round? Again, why would that have been harder for the Nuggets? The fact is that the Lakers, come playoff time, were the second best team in the West, led by a past-their-prime but still damn good Lebron James and Anthony Davis. Those four games between the Lakers and Nuggets were high quality basketball.
And then there are the NBA Finals. True, an eight seed making the finals is a rarity. So does that mean the eight seed Miami Heat were a weak opponent? I’d like to know what league you were watching if you thought this. The Heat beat the top-two seeded (and two best) teams in the East, the Bucks (easily) and the Celtics (with difficulty), demonstrating dominance in the first series and grit in the latter (they also beat the Knicks in-between).
These playoffs may have been crazy but one thing is clear: if the Bucks or Celtics were actually powerhouses they would have defeated the Heat! Their failure to do so reminds us that the Heat were the best team in the East and the second best team of these playoffs. Forget the seeding. This Heat team made the finals in 2020, nearly made the finals last year, has great intelligence, culture, and pedigree in Butler and Bam, and one of the best coaches in the NBA. Miami is tenacious, smart, and precise. They belonged in the Finals. Any other team would’ve posed a weaker challenge to the Nuggets.
2) Nikola Jokić is the best player in the NBA but Joel Embiid still deserved the regular season MVP award
What about my earlier post arguing that Jokić should not win a third straight MVP award? The fact is that Jokić winning a title changes things. This is the final, highest test for the pantheon of NBA greats—leading a team to an NBA title and winning the finals MVP award.
Of course individual players, even the very greatest, are not all powerful. They need talented, healthy teammates, great, flexible coaching staff, and a dose of good luck. Consider the early years of Michael Jordan, Lebron James, or Nikola Jokić. We don’t judge them for failing to win absent these crucial supports. As good as Jordan was, it took the addition of players like Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant, hiring Phil Jackson as coach, and Jordan gaining invaluable playoff experience before they could win it all. Similarly, no one holds it against Jokić for failing to win last year. The Nuggets were so injury-plagued that their playoff roster was basically Jokić plus the Nuggets bench. Of course they couldn’t win a title!
But once the right supports fall into place, the best players win. The very best, Jordan, Russell, Magic, Lebron, and so on, win again and again. Jokić nows joins that group.
(We also see this with the greatest players to never win a title, like Charles Barkley and Allen Iverson, who, though titleless, did each manage to lead their team to a finals appearance. It is basically impossible to be a top-30 all time player, probably even top-40, without ever appearing in the finals.)
This means that recent MVPs who are also champions, like Jokić and Giannis, will not face much skepticism if they win future MVP awards, nor will old warhorses with multiple titles like Curry, Durant, and James if they manage to win more MVPs.
On the other hand, Joel Embiid, this year’s MVP, will face greater scrutiny in the future, and deservedly so, for he has not yet advanced past the second round of the playoffs. If he puts together more MVP-caliber regular seasons, which it seems reasonable to expect, he will face increasing skepticism about collecting future MVP awards unless and until he manages to cross that final barrier, leading a team to a championship and winning finals MVP.
So I make no claims to any great insights for this NBA season. The playoffs were so crazy and hard to read that I went 7/14 in my picks (my worst by far) and didn’t even predict a winner for the finals. I don’t think my argument that Jokić should not have won a third straight MVP was wrong. As I said at the time, “Should he win a third straight MVP? In a word, no. Given that this league has a history, and awards are not isolated but add to and accumulate across resumes, winning a third straight MVP is too much, too soon…Having said that, I will now sit back and hopefully watch Jokić put together what he has not yet fully achieved—one of the greatest careers of all time.”
And that is what we are now watching. Things have changed. Jokić has definitively claimed the mantle of best player in the league. As a champion and a finals MVP (and a brilliant one at that), he has joined the pantheon. Welcome to the mountain, Nikola. The time for you to win more MVPs has arrived.