Ten Reasons Why I Hate the NBA Playoffs

The NBA Playoffs are upon us and many of you are excited about this un-godly long marathon we’re about to endure, but you know what, I’m not.  Fuck no, the NBA Playoffs are terrible and rank just above the NASCAR Sprint for the Cup, and that’s only because a playoff system in auto racing makes no fucking sense.  Here are “Ten Reasons Why I Hate the NBA Playoffs”.

1. Too Long: Round one of the playoffs begins tomorrow April 18^th and if any series goes to a game seven then that series won’t finish until May 3^rd.  That is 16 days, more than half a month for one playoff round and there is still two more of this bullshit before the Finals which don’t start until early June.  This means we have three fucking months of playoffs, and I’m not talking about gripping, watching the underdog overcome the odds to win it all exciting playoffs, no, I’m talking about predictable, boring, drudgingly shit here.  The NBA regular season is already a mind fuck of a marathon 82 games, the playoffs should be a sprint to the finish, not some long drawn out fuckery.
2. Best of 7 All the Way Through: Who in the blue hell thought this was a good idea?  Best of seven games in round one guarantees there aren’t any upsets.  How many times have we seen a scrappy fun 8^th seed take the first two games from the top seed only to maybe win one more game while the big bad number one team methodically beats them to a pulp in the later games of that round.  Before you say, “but that ensures the better team wins”, let me assure you, I don’t give a fuck about the better team, I want to see some exciting upsets and a team from the East that doesn’t have LeBron James to have a shot at the Finals.  One thing that makes the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament so exciting are the first two rounds when you see some scrappy mid-major knock off some one and two seeds.  Both George Mason and VCU’s run to the Final Four were two of the most exciting sports drama in the last 20 years (maybe longer, but I’m too lazy to do that kind of research, so fuck you).  Had Mason in their run had to play Michigan State in a best of seven, or hell a best of three they wouldn’t have had that run and the nation would not have been gripped by a school made of mostly commuters from Northern Virginia doing something really special.  As a sports watching community we will never have this with the NBA, because the NBA is one of those leagues where 999 times out of 1000 the better team will win a seven game series.
3. The East is Fucking Terrible: Three teams in the East finished with a .500 or worse record. Seriously?  I’d rather see the top three teams in the Eastern Conference get a bye then let three shitty teams into the playoffs.  When you have eight teams per conference make the playoffs it’s almost as if you have to work really hard not to make the post season.  I know you’re going to point out the paragraph above where I mention the scrappy underdog, but that post season scrappy underdog should at least belong in the playoffs, the fucking Nets finished six games below .500, SIX!  No team that shitty should be vying for a championship, ever.  These terrible teams in the playoffs just mean that the Hawks and Cavs are going to be completely rested for the next round and will demolish the mid-ranked teams who will probably battle for seven games to win their series, which means those teams will probably get destroyed by the Cavs and the Hawks and we won’t see a good series in the East until the Conference finals, that’s if global warmer hasn’t killed by that time.
4. Fuck the New York Knicks: This has nothing to do with the playoffs but needs to be said. I don’t think there has been a shittier team in all of sports who has gotten more coverage than the Knicks, the only shitty sports person who may have beaten them out is Tim Tebow.  I get it, they’re in New York City and we have to bow down to the New York media, but fuck, the Knicks are just comically bad, so much so that one of their beat writers started covering high school basketball instead and took suggestions from readers.  During the regular season I couldn’t turn on Sports Center without seeing some sort of piece on the Knicks.  And it’s not like they were trying to break down why the Knicks suck (which is easy, they have a dip shit owner and let Isiah Thomas run the team for way too long), no they were just doing fluff pieces because, uh, New York, I guess.  When the Nets left the toilet bowl of America (otherwise known as New Jersey) and had Jay-Z as a part owner (he owned like 1% but fuck it, he was court side!), I thought, maybe, just maybe we’d hear a little less about the Knicks, but no, Jay-Z had to go and sell is .0000001% of the fucking team because he wants to be an agent now, and the Nets weren’t good enough nor shitty enough to talk about, they were just there and often forgotten.  Also Knicks fans (if you haven’t committed suicide by now) Phil Jackson isn’t the answer.  You can point to all of his rings if you want, but he’s not a team builder.  He was hired by the Bulls when they were on the cusp of destroying the NBA and the same with the Lakers.  He hasn’t built shit, he’s that kid in the group project at school who leans on all the other kids to get shit done but then is right out in front when the awards are being handed out, while we’re at it, fuck Phil Jackson as well.
5. All the Good Teams are Out West: This isn’t a problem if you live on the West Coast, you get to see some pretty exciting basketball, but I’m not out there, I’m on the East, and we all know the world revolves around our time zone, so fuck you I have work in the morning.  I’ll let you in on a little secret dear reader, I have longed to live out west, probably Southern California, so I could enjoy all the sporting events at decent hours.  I could wake up on Sundays and football would just be starting and I wouldn’t have sit through hours and hours of Chris Berman and the idiot panel on ESPN (or any of the pregame shows for that matter), and Sunday/Monday Night Football would be over by like nine, I could watch West Coast baseball, this is the dream, but sadly I’m not on the West Coast and I can’t do all that if I want any sleep, so fuck all of you out there because I’m a bitter human being and you have the sports viewing life I dream of.
6. The NBA is too Predictable: I’m sure, right now, somewhere in Commissioner Silver’s office is a penciled in playoff bracket from December that’s pretty accurate to what the current bracket looks like. The NBA is the only sport where you can have a team full of nobodies and one superstar and you can be really good, give that superstar a role player or two and that is a recipe for domination, the lone exception being the Spurs, that’s a team full of role players who are just so good together that you think they have superstars, they don’t.  They are boring and predictable and NBA officials get off on that shit.  One thing I love about sports is hearing preseason predictions on who is going to win it all and then going back at the end of the season and laughing when no one, or very few were right (I’m looking at all of you who predicted the Washington Nationals to win the 2014 World Series).  However, with the NBA I can’t do that.  There are usually two to three teams who everyone picks every season, with the majority of those predictions being right.  Shit the NBA is the only league where before the first game of the season is played you can accurately pick the Finals.   Shit, I barely pay attention to the NBA and I can accurately pick the Finals most years.
7. Fuck LeBron James: No, seriously, fuck this guy. Granted he’s got all the talent in the world but man is he an asshole, and not a lovable one like yours truly here.  And while I’m at it, fuck Cleveland too.  When LeBron ditched them for Miami (which anyone in their right mind would, have you been to Cleveland, it’s a shit hole) they were all butt hurt and burned jerseys and talked shit, which was justified after the way LeBron held a fucking television special to announce he was going to Miami.  Dick bag move there LeBron and it made me feel for Cleveland, this guy got you close, realized he couldn’t do it alone so he takes less money to play with players who can help him win but he does it in Miami and not in Cleveland.  So he goes to Miami and wins a couple of championships in his prime years and then says “I’m going home.”  And all of a sudden Cleveland, even their prick of an owner who talked mountains of shit, all welcome him back with open arms.  Seriously Cleveland?  He did you dirty and now you’re all like “awe he didn’t mean it, he really loves us” that is clear battered spouse syndrome there and I hope he doesn’t win a championship with you all and in a year or two jets off to the Lakers or some shit and wins them another championship, that is what you deserve Cleveland for being such bitches.
8. The Stanley Cup is Better: The NHL is way more exciting than the NBA but sadly the league can’t get out of its own way and fucks everything up. Their playoffs are light years better.  Yes there are still eight teams that make it in, but at least with the NHL the disparage between 1 and 8 isn’t nearly as vast as in the NBA, we could actually see some upsets.  Also what’s nice about the Stanley Cup Playoffs are if a goalie for one of the lower seeded teams gets hot then an 8^th seed can win it all, it’s happened before and there is nothing more fun to watch in sports than a goalie who won’t give up shit.  Seemingly impossible saves look easy when a goalie gets hot; it’s a thing of beauty.  Also the Stanley Cup is the best looking trophy in all of sports. The  winning team along with the MVP are etched on the Cup, not to mention there is only one, the team only gets to keep it during the off season (with each player getting to make literal and figurative love to it for 24 hours).  The NBA trophy (no one knows what the fuck it’s called, I nominate the Michael Jordan Trophy) is kind of hideous.  It’s a ball with a quarter of a solid net and rim, not that exciting.  It would be way cooler if it was the only rim and net and not solid but an actual rim and net made of gold (or fake gold because god forbid a billion dollar league spend that money).
9. No Michael Jordan: Seriously, the NBA Playoffs have sucked since Jordan retired.  Sure we’ve had dominate players like Kobe and LeBron and to a lesser extent Shaq, but all of them have been boring.  Both Shaq and LeBron are big dudes who charge their way to the basket, hardly ever actually getting called for it, and when LeBron does pull up for a shot it’s the most boring shot possible, it looks like practice.  Kobe was a little more exciting but he didn’t have the panache Jordan had.  The way Jordan would drive to the lane, play defense, and pull up for a jumper were just exciting.  Every other player has to have a highlight reel made of them, for Jordan just watch any time he touched the ball, he was the human highlight reel.  Shit if he didn’t get caught gambling and “retired” for two seasons the Bulls very well could have won ten straight titles, and I know I got on the NBA for its predictability but when Jordan was at his peak no one gave a shit (unless you rooted against the Bulls) because he was just so much damn fun to watch, even the most die-hard Pistons or Celtics fan could help but smile watching MJ do his thing.  You can’t say that about LeBron, you can’t say that about Kobe, you either like them or you hate them, but everyone wanted to be like Mike.
10. It’s No Fun to Gamble On: Since we’re primarily a gambling advice site here at Going for 2 I have to touch on this.  It’s just no fun to gamble on the NBA Playoffs.  Sure you could take the Cavs and probably win some money but you’re not getting great odds in fact the eventual winner of the Finals, Cleveland probably (FUCK!), the odds totally suck and you won’t win that much.  Part of the fun of gambling is placing a wager with the odds stacked against you and making a killing.  So I mean you could bet on Cleveland and win but that’s no fun and when your sport takes the fun out of gambling then it deserves to die a quick death.

That’s it, those are the ten reasons why I hate the NBA Playoffs, if you’d like to know more about me, and why wouldn’t you, you can follow me on the Twitter @jomac006 or learn about my awesome writing career here https://www.facebook.com/fjoshuamccain?ref=hl , or if you’re a fine lady you can swipe right on Tinder.

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