One thing that hasn't really been mentioned much is there should be credit to other teams that played well enough to be playoff teams. Utah came out of nowhere and is a pretty nice team and on fire right now. Pelicans had Cousins go down and ended up not folding and making a couple moves to stay plenty competitive. Portland went on their usual run. The Spurs are in the playoffs basically without Leonard being a factor. The freaking Clippers had more injuries than youbwpuld have expected and still were above .500. Part of why the Wolves are where they are is because other teams stepped up.
The Wolves have won 12 freaking games more than they lost. Yeah they dropped some games to bad teams but they also had no long losing streaks. The Bucks are supposed to be a good team but they just got throttled tonight by the Sixers and have been inconsistent all year. This team hasn't figured it all out. That shouldn't be that shocking. It's got a bunch of young players and new vets. There is definitely something to build on here. There is some potential for the pieces on this team while adding to it can get better than what they were this year. It may even look more appealing. I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out.
8th seed is a Failure
Re: 8th seed is a Failure
Repeating myself here. Other than the Rockets and Raptors, the most impressive teams by far this season were the Sixers, Pacers and Jazz. Those three teams are worthy of my "All Overachiever" award. The Celtics get honorable mention for that award given what they accomplished after losing Hayward in the season's first game, losing Kyrie late in the season, relying on a rookie and 2nd year player to carry the team much of year, and losing that 2nd-year player for a stretch of games after his scary fall at Target Center. The Lakers were also pretty impressive given their situation. I'd consider them overachievers as well.
Re: 8th seed is a Failure
lipoli390 wrote:Repeating myself here. Other than the Rockets and Raptors, the most impressive teams by far this season were the Sixers, Pacers and Jazz. Those three teams are worthy of my "All Overachiever" award. The Celtics get honorable mention for that award given what they accomplished after losing Hayward in the season's first game, losing Kyrie late in the season, relying on a rookie and 2nd year player to carry the team much of year, and losing that 2nd-year player for a stretch of games after his scary fall at Target Center. The Lakers were also pretty impressive given their situation. I'd consider them overachievers as well.
I agree with your list. I would add that the Clippers overachieved even though it doesn't really mean anything. I'd put the Nuggets down the list because other teams did more but honestly with Millsap our as long as he was and still a pretty young roster so think they actually overachieved also. Hard to leave out the Spurs too. Pelicans are on there also.
If Wolves fans didn't like how the process looked and all that ended up imagine how OKC fans probably feel. Westbrook has another triple double season and they never really separated from other teams despite having some serious high end talent.