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The NBA regular season has gotten off to a fast start as we've already crossed 2 of the most important regular season matchups for the top teams in the league, opening night and Christmas day. In this short article, I would like to present my projections for the seeding of the playoff teams in both conferences.
Compared to my MVP prediction list, I have much less statistical information to go on since my sample size is so small. Therefore, this will be the most opinionated article I publish as my list is based primarily on film analysis.
Seeding Prediction
1. Los Angeles Lakers
2. Denver Nuggets
3. Los Angeles Clippers
4. Dallas Mavericks
5. Phoenix Suns
6. Portland Trailblazers
7. Utah Jazz
8. Houston Rockets
1. Milwaukee Bucks
2. Brooklyn Nets
3. Philadelphia 76ers
4. Miami Heat
5. Boston Celtics
6. Toronto Raptors
7. Washington Wizards
8. Atlanta Hawks
Addressing the Play-In Teams
This season, the NBA will have a play-in tournament at the end of the season that will consist of the 7th-10th seed of each conference in order to determine the bottom 2 playoff spots. In the Western Conference, I considered both the Golden State Warriors and New Orleans Pelicans as play-in teams. In the Eastern Conference, I considered the Indiana Pacers and Orlando Magic for the play-in tournament. I felt as if these teams were good enough to make the playoffs as they could surely gain many wins by beating sub par opponents, but would ultimately lose when faced in an elimination tournament against higher quality teams in their conference. Below I showed an example of my thought process when deciding if a team would obtain 1 of the final 2 spots in their conference.
Case Study: Golden State Warriors
The Warriors suffer from Klay Thompson's achilles injury, and now lack the perimeter shooting or defense required to compete against the top teams in the conference. While Steph Curry remains a top player in the NBA, his play style isn't as scalable to higher usage rates when compared with other stars in the league, which is why he struggles as a floor raiser when trying to carry under manned teams. The main problem for this team is the matchup problems that will occur when they line up against these other playoff contenders. Their main issues are their lack of 3 point shooting and depth at the center position. When competing against teams such as Houston and Utah, they will suffer when trying to contain elite guards like John Wall, James Harden and Donovan Mitchell. Houston and Utah are also far superior 3 point shooting teams, and this will only be amplified as their primary ball handlers will be able to create efficiently due to the injury of Golden State's top guard defender. Both teams also have dominant big men, who will help them dominate the paint on both ends of the floor. The warriors won't be able to match their opponents rebounding ability, and will struggle to score against these bigger teams, as most of their top players are inefficient shooters from the perimeter.
Way Too Early Playoff Prediction
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