NBA
NBA Power Rankings: Net Gains
Jeff Hawkins is an award-winning sportswriter with more than four decades in the industry (print and digital media). A freelance writer/stay-at-home dad since 2008, Hawkins started his career with newspaper stints in Michigan, North Carolina, Florida, Upstate New York and Illinois, where he earned the 2004 APSE first-place award for column writing (under 40,000 circulation). As a beat writer, he covered NASCAR Winston Cup events at NHIS (1999-2003), the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks (2003-06) and the NFL's Carolina Panthers (2011-12). Hawkins penned four youth sports books, including a Michael Jordan biography. Hawkins' main hobbies include mountain bike riding, 5k trail runs at the Whitewater Center in Charlotte, N.C., and live music.
All posts by Jeff HawkinsUpdated06 Nov 2023
With the calendar having officially turned to April, the NBA playoffs are near, although much is still to be determined, at least as it relates to some of the lower seeds in each conference.
The Brooklyn Nets have certainly picked a good time to put together a season-high five-game winning streak. After being left for dead, the timely win steak had them locked up in a photo finish with the Miami HEAT for the East’s final two seeds, though the Boston Celtics will have something to say about that, as well.
Out West, as the Kevin Durant-less Oklahoma City Thunder prepare for a playoff battle with the Golden State Warriors, we wonder if the Warriors can buck the trend of the last 25 years, where inexperienced teams generally do not win the championship.
As the San Antonio Spurs develop Kawhi Leonard’s low-post offensive repertoire with the strategy of using him as a playmaker from the post, we think it is wise to remind you that this year, seeds in the Western Conference don’t matter.
In fact, one could say they are almost as irrelevant as the final two weeks of the regular season are to the Warriors. They have locked just about everything up and, predictably, end Week 22 looking down at the rest of the league.
