Good morning. Let’s basketball.

Ossian Receiving the Ghosts of the French Heroes; Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson; 1800-02

The NBA having achieved some level of regular season parity has been noticed. It’s worth thinking about the effects of this parity, both good and bad.

On the negative side, the NBA has often thrived on the backs of hegemonic triumphs. Michael Jordan’s Bulls were an absolute ratings machine. Those teams won almost every night and certainly every spring … and fans ate it up. They couldn’t look away.

The LeBron James era Heat were a huge ratings draw, even as half the sports world claimed to despise everything the enterprise and its centerpiece stood for. The Warriors, both with Stephen Curry centered and then with a second marquee star in Kevin Durant added, were a mammoth draw for casual fans. Ratings rose and fell on the fortunes of Golden State in those years, and frankly still do to a degree to this day.

The league and many analysts claim to want competitive balance, believing that less certainty about eventual results and broader if shallower success is healthy for the long-term growth of the NBA. That very well may be true: building fan cultures across the geography of the NBA is important, but it remains to be seen if being in the mix for playoff spots regularly is worth the trade-off of casual fans outside of NBA markets checking out on account of not having One Big Thing to watch.

Ratings and ad revenue aren’t really that important to the fan experience at all. But those things do matter to the folks in the NBA league office, players’ union HQ and C-suites in all 28 NBA cities. And how the new competitive balance landscape impacts the bottom line will matter in further iterations of the labor agreement that truly legislates the standings.

On the positive side, the new parity means that every game really does matter. The regular season is extremely important right now. In the East, three games separate the No. 4 seed from the No. 8 seed. As a reminder: the No. 4 seed gets home court advantage in the first round. The No. 8 seed has to win a play-in game on the road just to make the playoffs. Three games separate Brooklyn at No. 4 and Atlanta at No. 8. Three games. Every game matters.

The West is even more tight: three games separate the No. 1 seed from the No. 7 seed. In other words, the No. 7 seed is three games out of the No. 1 seed, and the No. 1 seed is three games from falling into the play-in. We’re a few days out from Christmas, and there are legitimately at least seven Western Conference teams who are a good two-week run from claiming the top of the standings or a bad two-week run from feeling the pressure of the play-in. And then there are two more teams one additional game back, and two more teams one more game back from that. In all, there are 11 teams within five games of the No. 1 seed. Only 10 of those teams will make the postseason at all, and of course only eight will make the playoffs, and we have no credible read on where any of the teams will fall in the shake-out. This is absolutely wild.

In both conferences, tiebreakers are likely to play a role in deciding seeds. Given how many teams are close to each other, then, every tiebreaker has some potential importance once you exclude the bottom-five teams in the league. Keeping up with tiebreakers is notoriously difficult and the NBA doesn’t do a great job hyping up pivotal games in the tiebreak races until late in the season. But these are real stakes, which is exactly what the NBA has been chasing in recent years as teams and fans jointly came to the conclusion that the regular season doesn’t really matter.

As I’ve written before, the beauty in the play-in tournament isn’t in those four games at the end of the season, though those contests are high-pressure and fun. The real benefit of the play-in should be in making competitive teams care more about every regular season game due to the clear benefit from finishing No. 6 instead of Nos. 7 or 8. There’s now a massive incentive to win more regular season games if you’re in that sub-elite, above-average tier. We are truly seeing the fruits of that: there are stakes for the vast majority of games right now given those incentives and the tightness of the standings. The teams and players and, one hopes, fans really care.

We’ll see if this translates to the broader sports audience as the new paradigm comes into view. I find the NBA and Turner’s decision to abandon Thursday nights during the NFL season to be a little afraid, and it’s a bummer that marquee ABC Saturday night match-ups are so spotty before January. Discovery, serendipity and access plays such an important role in building fandoms, and the NBA is really not that accessible to casual sports fans early in the season. Sure, you can download the NBA app to get highlights, or watch TNT on Tuesdays or ESPN on Wednesdays and sometimes Fridays. Are casual sports fans leaving notifications on in the NBA app? You might get lucky on NBA TV, if the increasingly restrictive geographic limits don’t hit you. (In Northern California, I’ve been blocked from watching the Lakers, Warriors and Clippers on recent nights despite being in the Kings’ catchment area and not getting channels that broadcast the other California teams’ games. I have League Pass, but not through my cable provider, so this creates friction in trying to access the games NBA TV is showing. I’m obviously pot-committed to this enterprise so I’ll get through the friction. You think casual sports fans looking to put something on will do the same?

The NBA chose this path elevating competitive balance and parity over team-based hegemony. They chose to prioritize every game for every team mattering more than to create a self-replicating main event. Now we see if they can convince fans that this path is better for them, and get those fans to pay attention before the playoffs. It’s a multi-year project to be sure, but this season feels like a perfect example of what the league was going for and as such seems like a great canvas to explore how the NBA’s going to make it work to build the game.

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Scores

Jazz 99, Cavaliers 122 — Utah has the No. 25 defense in the league despite still sitting above .500. Cleveland took advantage of that as four of the five starters shot better than 60% from the field. (Isaac Okoro shot 50%.) And then Cedi Osman went 8/10 off the bench. Can’t win games without getting stops, Jazz!

Raptors 101, Sixers 104 (OT) — Brutal loss for the flailing Raptors after a nice fourth quarter comeback. Pascal Siakam with an enormous game (38-15-6) including the shot to send it to overtime but Fred VanVleet and Scottie Barnes were ice cold on offense.

Magic 125, Hawks 126 — Orlando was down nine without possession with 2:15 left … and took the lead. But Dejounte Murray drew a foul on Paolo Banchero on the deciding possession to claim the game.

Banchero and Markelle Fultz have something working. And what a spot for 25-year-old rookie Kevon Harris, working on a two-way for the Magic and getting the crunch time assignment of guarding Trae Young … and doing a really good job of it!

Spurs 124, Rockets 105

Mavericks 106, Timberwolves 116 — Another night, another NBA superstar getting ejected by the officials for a potty mouth.

On the one hand, this isn’t rec league and fans don’t pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to watch an official throw out the best players in the world. On the other hand, Luka is tied with Draymond Green for the title of most frequent and vociferous complainer, and his complaint on this non-call was deeply annoying (neither the defender or the ref fell for your 2018 bait, buck up Wonder Boy).

Either these refs are going to break the current complaint paradigm by sheer force or the NBA is going to tell them to stop it. I’m fine either way, to be honest. Just as long as the ejections stop.

Bucks 128, Pelicans 119 — Since the entire NBA Internet started praising the Pelicans to high heavens when they hit No. 1 in the West a little over a week ago, New Orleans is 0-4 and has slipped to No. 4 in the West. Nothing is stable, nothing is certain.

Giannis with 42 on 17 FGAs and 22 FTAs. Efficient.

Blazers 121, Thunder 123 — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander at the buzzer for the win.

Missed a chance to wave goodbye to Damian Lillard and the Blazers in a throwback to Dame’s most famous moment. Alas, next time.

Shai had 35 overall. Dame passed Clyde Drexler to become the Blazers’ all-time scoring leader. The ending leading up to SGA’s winner was replete with free throws; a perfect candidate for an Elam ending, really.

Lakers 104, Suns 130 — Presented without comment.

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Pat Bev really hit CP3 with the "too small" down 26 💀

3:55 AM ∙ Dec 20, 2022

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Hornets 125, Kings 119 — Deeply frustrating loss for the Kings. De’Aaron Fox did almost everything possible to salvage the game in the closing minutes, but the Sacramento defense (missing an injured Harrison Barnes late) conceded buckets and offensive rebounds to the Hornets and didn’t play with tempo going the other way. Blah.

Schedule

All times Eastern.

Jazz at Pistons, 7
Bulls at Heat, 7:30
Warriors at Knicks, 7:30, TNT
Wizards at Suns, 9
Grizzlies at Nuggets, 10, TNT

We will have some links on Wednesday. Be excellent to each other.