Does Seeding Matter?
A look at whether the Knicks should be concerned about where they end up.
Good morning! The Knicks continue their road trip in Utah tonight to face a frisky Jazz team that will sneak out a win if you’re not careful. They’re dealing with a ton of injuries but continue to play hard. For the Knicks, Josh Hart is questionable.
Does Seeding Matter?
Hello friends.
Today was one of those days where I didn’t have a clear direction in mind for the newsletter. This happens from time to time, usually late in the season when the playoffs are around the corner. Once you get to mid-March in the NBA, it feels like we’ve said all the things that are there to be said about a team and most topics feel like spinning our wheels. My guess is that the players are going through their own version of this, which might explain what we just witnessed in LA.
I thought about revisiting the turnovers from the last two games, all 784 of them, but decided against it for two reasons. First, I genuinely don’t believe turnovers are an issue we need to worry about. Even after back to back butterfinger performances, New York remains in a virtual three-way tie for 7th, 8th and 9th in league-wide turnover rate. They’ll be fine.
The second reason, frankly, is something I’m guessing many of you share, which is that I’d very much like not to revisit either of these games ever again.
As a result, I decided to turn my attention forward to the playoffs, and specifically to the recent conversation about seeding.
If we look at the current statistical probabilities on Basketball Reference, going into last night’s games, the Knicks had less than a one percent chance to finish first, a 20.4 percent chance to finish second, a 48.1 percent chance to finish third, a 28.2 percent chance to finish fourth, and less than a three percent chance to finish fifth or sixth. They are one of a handful of teams, along with the Pistons, Celtics, Thunder and Spurs, that have a 100 percent chance to avoid the play-in based on these models.
As for the teams above them, BBallRef still gave the Pistons a 93.7 percent chance at finishing with the top seed in the East despite their recent slide, but this takes into account Boston’s difficult remaining slate (whereas Detroit has one of the easiest schedules left) and the fact that the Pistons have already won the season series over the Celtics.
Below the Knicks (again, going into last night’s games), the Miami Heat had the best chance to finish in fifth, followed by the Raptors and then the Magic, but those probabilities are all close enough to essentially be a toss up, with the same 3-team jumble in a race for the sixth seed. At this point, given their own seeding uncertainty and that of the teams below them, trying to guess New York’s first round opponent is akin to trying to guide a dart to the bullseye while blindfolded and drunk.
But if we’re being honest, if the Knicks are even remotely serious title contenders, their first round opponent shouldn’t matter. Yes, some series will likely be easier than others (and no, I don’t want any part of the Heat), but their potential second round opponent interests me far more.
James Edwards III had a nice article for the Athletic in which he power ranked the three likely seeding possibilities, ranking fourth place as the most desirable option, followed by second and then third1. In short, his rationale was that the Raptors (currently in fifth place) are arguably New York’s best first round opponent, but just as importantly, that the Pistons, while clearly a tough matchup for the Knicks, are not yet battle tested. It’s the second point I want to focus on today.
To do so, I went back through the last 20 years and looked for any teams that skipped past the usual gradual playoff build-up and fast-tracked their way to a conference finals without much prior postseason success. As you might expect, most of the 80 teams I looked at that made it that far had prior playoff success of some kind, winning at least a series with their core.
16 did not, and there are some unique lessons to learn from that group.
