The NBA Retirement Home is Open

Is Kevin Durant a Loser? Are we sure about the Nuggets? Four thoughts from the opening week of the NBA playoffs.

The first round of the NBA playoffs has been best summed up by Anthony Edwards’ memorable trash talk to Kevin Durant – “move over old man, it’s not your time anymore”¹.

You make the NBA A-List when the average fan knows you by one name. And all those (old) dudes – Russ, Harden, PG, Kawhi, Steph, Draymond, Klay, KD, LeBron, AD, Dame, Giannis² – are gonna be watching round 2 from home.

Their replacements are largely two-name dudes heading for one name territory. It’s a coming-out party of “Shai”, “Chet”, “Ant”, and “Haliburton” so far and there might be a lot more “Paolo” and “Luka” in our immediate future.

This is a trend that’s reared its head all year – before the year started, bettors expected greatness from the old dogs. After the Celtics and Nuggets (young but experienced), the championship favorites were all old-y squads: Suns, Bucks, Warriors, and Lakers. The four could combine for two playoff wins.

The regular season showed a youth resurgence – the only one of the four teams to crack league’s top 8 in either win % and point differential was the Suns, despite every single old superstar avoiding a major in-season injury. Let’s repeat that: not a single one missed 20 or more games. And yet, not a single one won 50 games.

Fans of “the playoffs are different” vibes had a good season last year, when LeBron and Steph rolled young, inexperienced teams in Round 1. But maybe the main lesson should have been how bad those foes were: at 48-34 with a +2.6 point differential, the 2023 Sacramento Kings were maybe the worst 3-seed in 20 years³. Both marks would rank 11th in the league this year. The Grizzlies lost their whole frontline during the series.

Time for some new blood.

A couple other thoughts…

I’m Worried About the Nuggets

I wrote before the year about Denver’s post-championship upgrade potential. In the regular season, they were delivering on that, improving to 57 wins (from 53) with +5.3 point differential (from +3.3).

So it puts me in an odd spot to now be doubting this team. Watching the game 4 broadcast, announcers repeatedly praised Denver’s pedigree and inevitability. They’d come back thrice from 10 points down to take a 3-0 lead over the Lakers. They folded in game 4 but there’s confidence they’ll finish them off tonight in Game 5. Commentator consensus is this is an all-time great team.

Why, exactly?

Comebacks are fun TV, but bad basketball. You come back from 10 points down with mettle and strong play … after you let the other team run you out of the gym for six minutes. Denver has now had this happen four straight times. That’s not dominance; it’s scraping by.

The path ahead is also going to be much harder. Denver’s championship run last year was glorious but against all-time lightweight competition. I’ve plotted here their likely path (Wolves, Mavs/Clips/Thunder, Celtics) against all the teams they’ve played the last 5 years. Red dots are a loss, green dots a win, blue dots a potential playoff matchup this year.

It’s an understated part of this era of Nuggets basketball that the only “great” (or even “good”, really) regular season team they’ve beat in the playoffs is the 2020 Clippers. To go back-to-back, they’ll likely need to beat 3 teams on that level.

I like the field.

Is Kevin Durant A Loser?

There will be a longer post on this at some point. Durant is a lot like Okonwko, things just keep falling apart around him. The man keeps putting up great statistics during the regular season, but it’s been a continual run of postseason failures. Durant has lost 17 of his last 24 postseason games. Four of those wins were against an injury-decimated Clippers team whose best player was Washed Russ. Against actual teams, he’s lost 17 of 20!!  

Lifetime, he’s 38-10 in the playoffs with Steph Curry and 63-59 without. After a heroic effort against the Bucks in 2021, it’s three straight years of complete team disintegration. Part of this is GM Durant is historically awful (teaming up with Kyrie; signing off on Brad Beal over DeAndre Ayton⁴), but I reckon his stats may also belie some greater weakness to his game. One working theory: his iso-heavy / analytically-poor playstyle simply lulls his teams into easily scheme-able offenses. Another: he’s just fucking old and figured out how to get stats without really impacting the game.

(Related: Mr. Dame Time is 4-14 in the playoffs since beating the Nuggets to advance to the 2019 Western Conference Finals).

LeBron (And Every Free Agent) Should Go East

The East just sucks. It’s fun to watch the Knicks but not a team in this conference holds a candle to the Celtics. The gulf between the Mavs/Clips series and the Magic/Cavs one is massive: if you swapped the Celtics with teams in the West, I suspect at least 7 would be favorites to win it.

This historical imbalance Is likely to continue: other the Magic, there are no especially young on-the-rise East talents. Nearly half the conference is not within three years of contention - Charlotte, Detroit, Atlanta, Brooklyn, Chicago, Washington, and Toronto. The West has 13 teams with legitimate top-25 players (sorry Portland and Utah).

This is either walking legacy arbitrage or the start of a hell of a Celtics run.

1. Ok, I’m paraphrasing a bit.

2. 30 in December, with a game unlikely to age so well.

3. They’d likely won that series if De’Aaron Fox doesn’t hurt his hand, too.

4. I remain convinced DeAndre Ayton is useful.