Is there *any* precedent for holding *any* hope? Here's the raw data

[sturt]

(Originally posted this morning to the Stand Pat thread, but just honestly, put too much work into this yesterday to not give its own thread after all.)

 

  

On 2/11/2022 at 9:16 AM, AHF said:

Good question.  Would be interested to see the precedent there.   Pretty sure that doesn't describe any NBA champion.

The only team that came to my mind right away that made a big run from this potential position was the 1999 NY Knicks.  60% of the way through the season, they had a 17-13 record so they were not on the outside looking in at a similar stage.  They instead stumbled to an 8th seed after a weak 10-10 finish before going crazy in the playoffs and making the NBA Finals.

Anybody you are thinking of who had big success in this circumstance?

Decided to look at every season's final four teams' status (champ, runner-up, and semi-final losers to each) with 30 games remaining.

Then also created a column that looked at the percentage of playoff slots in relation to total NBA teams--since, obviously, the easier it is to make the playoffs, the more likely it is that teams can make it, even with a bad record.

Notice that the 2021 season is shaded, and that's to denote that everything above that row was the same or more difficult in terms of playoff slot opportunity.

Notice also that the third column, then, is in a gray font, and that's because those seasons were naturally easier for bad teams to qualify for the playoffs... and so, the main ones to give any attention are the first two columns.

Finally, where I could, I discovered where those teams that were 0.500 or below (yellow) and 0.550 to 0.501 (peach) placed in their conference standings on the date when they had 30 games left in the season (...basketball-reference doesn't go back before the 1971 season). If a team is marked in red, that indicates their 30-games-left W/L% was the worst for any who finished as they did (champ, runner-up, loser to eventual champ, or loser to eventual runner-up).

Pardon the inconvenience, but I've not taken the time to list the actual team associated with any given cell--it's easy enough to go look that up for oneself based on who was the champion, runner-up, and semi-final loser to the eventual champ, and same for eventual runner-up in a given season.

Here's what I found...

(Click on graphic to enlarge the image.)

 

Our Hawks, of course, were 0.480 (25-27) with 30 games remaining.

 

[AHF]

So the teams that were sub-.500 after the 1950s all lost in the conference finals but I'm impressed there are even this many of them.  Perhaps notable that it hasn't happened in 35 years.  Here are the most recent teams that met this criteria:

1987 Seattle Supersonics (7th seed) - End record 39-43 

1984 Phoenix Suns (6th seed) - End record 41-41

1981 Kansas City Kings (tied for the 5th best record in an era with 6 playoff seeds - 1/2 game ahead of the 7th seed) - End record 40-42

 

 

 

 

[sturt]

Just for context how/why this even was a thing thought to pursue...

 

 

[sturt]

CC speaks on the topic...

 

 

[AHF]

I'll be rooting for them the rest of the season (of course).  But I also have lost some real confidence for now where I'm thinking giving JJ an actual chance to show whether he can absorb some minutes is more of a priority than it was earlier in the year.  

Would love it if the next version of the most recent teams to accomplish this went:  1987 Sonics - 2022 Hawks.  (But I wouldn't bet on it.)

[Spud2nique]

1 minute ago, AHF said:

1987 Sonics

I love Dale Ellis, indeed.

[sturt]

5 minutes ago, AHF said:

giving JJ an actual chance

 

Do you do that, even though JJ's actually played more NBA games at this point than even G-League? It gets underappreciated, I think, that he's also been dealing with health issues for so much of the year.

 

If not for that, I'd agree that almost 60 games into the season, it's time to let your #20 pick get some minutes, just as you began giving your #6 pick some minutes about 30 games into last season.

 

11 minutes ago, AHF said:

Would love it if the next version of the most recent teams to accomplish this went:  1987 Sonics - 2022 Hawks.  (But I wouldn't bet on it.)

 

It all comes back to health to me. Well, not all.

It also comes back to defense.

If we stay healthy after the break, and if we regain our defensive chops for those remaining games, I still like our chances to shock the world and get into the EC finals.

But. Them be some significant contingencies, of course.