Do The Mavs Have Any Hope In The Current NBA Structure?
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DALLAS (105.3 The Fan) - Hope is one of the most powerful principles in sports.
Fans thrive on hope--the idea that "my team" can win on any given night is powerful--and leagues thrive on fans.
Hope is absent from the NBA. It's a problem, but I don't know how to fix it.
I'm a Mavericks fan like many in the DFW metroplex. This season has been a pleasant surprise for a team I thought would win 37 games. They've gotten off to a solid start in the face of injuries to key players. With a Western Conference that isn't as strong as in years past, the Mavericks have a great chance at making the playoffs.
As a fan, I try hard to get excited about the Mavericks but I just can't. Hope is a dumbbell way too heavy for me to curl for this team and in this league.
The Mavericks aren't at a point as an organization where they can truly express a "Championship or Bust" mentality. Since 2007, they've made it out of the first round just twice, with the 2011 journey ending in a title. But, while expecting a Championship is probably improper, hoping for one isn't. Hoping for one, however, is futile, for the Mavericks, and almost everyone else.
Unless you are one of the league's elite, you aren't winning a title. It just doesn't happen. Sorry.
Since 2000, the average seed of the NBA Champion is 1.75 and the average seed of NBA Finals participants is 1.91. In most years, if you aren't first or second seed, it ain't happening.
Of course, there are exceptions, like the 2011 Mavericks, who won the title as a three-seed. The last time a team seeded higher than three won a title was twenty years ago when the 1995 sixth-seeded Western Conference Rockets defeated the Eastern Conference's top-seed, the Orlando Magic.
This is a problem and one that exists only in the NBA.
In Major League Baseball, the 2014 World Series was made up of two Wild Card teams.
In the NFL, sixth seeds (the lowest among playoff teams) have won the Super Bowl twice in the last decade, with three straight seasons (2010-2012) of teams seeded four or lower hoisting the hardware.
The NHL is the only other of the four major sport sports leagues to have 16 total playoff teams like the NBA. Whereas the NBA has had just...wait a second...whereas the NBA has had ZERO teams seeded higher than four make the finals (and only two four seeds) since 2000, the NHL has had eight, including two champions.
That just doesn't happen in the NBA.
We aren't even a quarter of the way into the season and as excited as I am about the Mavericks, I watch knowing that they have no shot to make a run, which sucks some of the life out the season. Maybe--MAYBE--they win a series, a proposition highly doubtful as it stands, but beyond that, they're toast.
This is a problem, but I just don't know how to fix it.
One way to level the odds a bit is to shorten each playoff series. The shorter the series, the better chance an underdog has to swing an upset. But, realistically, that just isn't happening. Fewer games means less revenue and this is a business, after all.
Beyond that, I'm at a loss for ideas. Maybe the amazing top-end talent is to blame, but that's one of the special elements of the league.
All I know is that hope is important and the current state of the league sucks that out of a majority of fan bases and somehow that's got to change.
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