NBA: Which team will overtake Memphis Grizzlies for eighth in Western Conference?
Seven of the eight Western Conference playoff bids were all but secured before the NBA’s best and brightest stars convened in Chicago for All-Star Weekend.
The Los Angeles Lakers, Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Clippers, Utah Jazz and Houston Rockets look like postseason locks. Barring catastrophe, the Oklahoma City Thunder and Dallas Mavericks will get in, too.
The only question is which team will earn the eighth seed. The Memphis Grizzlies were eighth coming out of the All-Star break with a four-game lead over the Portland Trail Blazers before suffering a 129-125 loss to the Kings on Thursday night in Sacramento. The Grizzlies were trending up with an 8-2 record in their previous 10 games, but they have the most difficult remaining schedule in the NBA, according to Tankathon.com.
FiveThirtyEight predicts the Grizzlies (28-27) will be overtaken by two sub-.500 squads from a group of teams that includes the Trail Blazers (25-31), San Antonio Spurs (23-31), New Orleans Pelicans (23-32), Phoenix Suns (22-33) and Kings (22-33). The statistical analysis website predicts the Pelicans will earn the eighth spot with a 40-42 record, following by the Blazers at 39-43 and then the Grizzlies at 37-45.
The site gives the Pelicans a 55-percent chance of qualifying for the playoffs. FiveThirtyEight only gives the Spurs a 3-percent chance of reaching the playoffs, the Kings a 2-percent chance and the Suns a 1-percent chance, but the Spurs are a half-game ahead of the Pelicans while the Kings and Suns sit a game back.
The Pelicans have gone 6-6 since rookie phenom Zion Williamson made his NBA debut Jan. 22. FiveThirtyEight predicts they will go 17-10 over their last 27 games. If the Kings or Suns were to go 17-10 from here on out, they would finish 39-43, only one game back of the projected record for New Orleans.
The Grizzlies are about to visit the Lakers, Clippers and Rockets. They still have to play the Kings, Lakers, Orlando Magic, Thunder, Pelicans, Boston Celtics, Toronto Raptors, Mavericks, Thunder and Philadelphia 76ers at home. They will play the Brooklyn Nets, Mavericks, Trail Blazers, Jazz, Spurs, Milwaukee Bucks, Pelicans, Raptors, Blazers, Nuggets and Rockets (again) on the road.
The Pelicans have the easiest remaining schedule, according to Tankathon. The Blazers, who will be without Damian Lillard (groin) for at least three to five games, are 26th in strength-of-schedule rating. The Kings are 23rd, the Spurs are 20th, the Suns are ninth and the Grizzlies are No. 1.
At least one of those teams is going to make a serious run at the Grizzlies and maybe the Pelicans, too.
“It’s going to be entertaining,” Kings coach Luke Walton said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun. I think you are going to see a lot of high-level basketball down the stretch. … It’s going to be great for our group. We’ve got a lot of these playoff teams with top records left, so what a great challenge for us to grow from and try to win as many as possible.”
Warriors: Curry will be back soon
The Warriors (12-44) would probably have to go 26-0 to sniff the playoffs, and that probably wouldn’t even be enough. They could put themselves in line for the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft if they simply play out the schedule, but they’re planning to bring former MVP Stephen Curry back in March when his broken hand is healed.
“He’s perfectly healthy,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr told reporters in San Francisco, according to ESPN. “He’s in the prime of his career. If the point is because he might get hurt, then what’s the point of ever playing anything? People can get hurt any day. I guess the argument would be, ‘Well, we’re not going to the playoffs.’ So are we not trying to entertain our fans?
“We’re selling tickets to all these people who love basketball, and Steph Curry is one of the most amazing, graceful, exciting basketball players on earth. And if he were healthy and we didn’t present him to our fans and say, ‘Here you go. Here’s your gift for staying with us for this whole season,’ what would that say about us? That we don’t care about our fans? So, to me, it’s never been a question. As soon as he’s ready, he’s coming back. Our fans deserve it. We need it as a team to springboard into next year, and it’s the right thing to do.”
Coming up: Kobe Bryant memorial
The Los Angeles Lakers will hold a memorial Monday at Staples Center for NBA legend Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, who died along with seven others last month when their helicopter crashed in Calabasas. Bryant’s widow, Vanessa, posted a formal invitation on Instagram, calling the memorial a “Celebration of Life.”
This story was originally published February 21, 2020 at 6:31 AM.
