ESPN gives Rockets props in a roundabout way

From ESPN Insider:


How important is playoff seeding?


By Terry Brown
Friday, February 22 Updated 11:06 AM EST


If the earth were flat as the Sun rotated around it and the playoffs began today, then the Sacramento Kings would be the new NBA champions.

Or the Dallas Mavericks.

Though the Utah Jazz have an outside chance of making history repeat itself.

It's really quite elementary when you think about it. We went back 11 years, covering two Michael Jordan retirements and two comebacks, and found out that in 10 of those seasons, the team with the best or second-best record during the regular season went on to win the NBA Title.

Currently, the Kings have the best record at 40-13 and, according to our late hours spent digging through boxscores and oreo packages, have the best historical chance of winning the championship as six of those 10 teams have been the one with the best record.

The Mavericks, at 37-17, have the second-best record and the second-best chance according to our survey as four of those 10 championship teams have been in that regular-season runner-up position.

The one team to break this cycle was, of course, the 1995 Houston Rockets, who didn't have the best, second-best or even fifth-best record in the Western Conference. That team went 47-35, gave up homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs to four consecutive 50-win teams and won their second consecutive NBA championship as the sixth seed, the lowest to ever accomplish the feat.

And that team went 15-7 in the playoffs, better than the 1994 Rocket team that started the season with an NBA record-tying 15-0 run and the 2000 Lakers, who breezed through the regular season with an eight-game cushion and 67 wins.

Both of those aforementioned teams went an apologetic 15-8 in the postseason.

The 1996 Bulls also finished the regular season with a whopping eight-game gap and record 72 wins but still couldn't manage to post the best postseason record, finishing 15-3.

That record goes to the 2001 Lakers, who didn't even finish with the best regular-season record. In fact, they finished 16 games worse than those 1996 Bulls and 11 games worse than themselves the previous season but put together a 9-1 run at the end of the regular season and 15-1 run in the postseason to win their second consecutive NBA title despite having the second-lowest winning percentage of any championship team in the last 11 years.

Speaking of runs, the 1999 Spurs capped that shortened season with a 31-5 streak before finishing with the second-best postseason record of 15-2.

But none of this gibberish ever seemed to mean anything during the repeat three-peat years of the Bulls. Their first NBA title came after they finished with the second-best record in the league and went 15-2 in the playoffs. The next year, they led the entire league by an eye-popping 10 games at 67-15 but went 15-7 in the playoffs. The following year, they posted the fewest wins of any championship Bull team with 57 but put together a tidy 15-4 run in the playoffs.

In that first three-peat stanza, the Bulls lost a total of 13 playoffs games. In the second three-peat stanza in which the Bulls finished every season at the top of the standings, they also lost a total of 13 playoff games.

Last season, the Philadelphia Sixers raced out to a 10-0 start before finishing tied with the Lakers with the second-best regular season record. But they could only manage a 12-11 postseason record, which made for a nice long advertiser-pleasing playoff run but no shiny trophy at the end. The Spurs finished with the best regular-season record last year but also put together a rather pedestrian 7-5 playoff showing which looked a lot better at 7-1 before being swept by Los Angeles in the Western Conference Finals.

Two teams that almost finished just as hot as those Lakers last season were the Charlotte Hornets (20-11 after the All-Star break) and Dallas Mavericks (22-10). So it should have come at no surprise that they exceeded their seeded expectations to advance to the second round despite not having homecourt advantage in the first round. In fact, the Hornets were one strong fourth quarter away from upsetting the Bucks, who won six more regular-season games, in a seven-game semifinal series and reaching the Eastern Conference Finals.

The Jazz, on the other hand, finished with a meager 21-14 record after the All-Star break that season and never recovered, losing in the first round two-games-to-three despite being the No. 4 seed with homecourt advantage over the Mavs. But more on them later.

So what does it all mean with a bag of pretzels?

Well . . . that the Lakers have their regular-season work cut out for them or they risk blowing this whole statistical analysis out the window. They are currently tied with the New Jersey Nets with the fourth-best record in the NBA at 35-16, which still puts them ahead of last year's pace but way behind this year's Godzilla-sized expectations..

But no team in the last 11 seasons has ever won with the fourth-best regular season record nor the third seed in their conference. It's just not sexy enough. Uncool. Uncouth.

And we'll have no choice but to cheer for the much more lovable sixth seed with all our underdog fervor. That's right. The Jazz have tried this dance as the top seed twice and second seed once but couldn't manage to turn the trick though twice reaching the NBA Finals.

This time, though, they've got expectations on the other side not to mention the sentimental vote in their behalf for beleaguered stat icons Karl Malone and John Stockton. Their record is below their standards, they'll have no homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs and currently have a 15-16 record versus conference opponents and 14-14 road record that help make up a 31-24 shot at history.

So pigs may very well fly and they could be popping sparkling apple cider in Salt Lake City underneath a chilled Olympic torch.

It could happen.

Remember the Rockets.