NBA Season Recap

Just like the NHL season before it, the NBA regular season has come to an end. During the 5 month, 82 game season, we were treated to lots of highlights, many of which belonged to Blake Griffin. In addition to Blake's high flying monster jams, the NBA season did have other highlights: Kevin Love, of the Minnesota Timberwolves, strung together a record 53 straight double-doubles, Derrick Rose put together what could be an MVP season as he led the Bulls to a return to glory and then there was that whole Miami thing. Despite whatever you think about D-wade, King James and Chris Bosh all playing together, those three definitely put together a more then their fair share of highlight real material.

So, with the regular season over and the gagillion month long NBA playoffs in full swing, we have a chance to go back and look at our pre-season rankings. For those of you that read the pre-season preview this should be an interesting chance to see how Matt and I did with our picks. For those of you that didn't read the pre-season ranking, stop now and just know we got everything 100% correct.

Here is a quick look at what we predicted at the beginning of the NBA season

Best Five:

• (censor)
• Boston Celtics
• Orlando Magic
• Miami Heat
• Los Angeles Lakers

Worst Five:

• Minnesota Timberwolves
• Detroit Pistons
• Sacromento Kings
• Washington Wizards
• Toronto Raptors

Here is how things actually went down in the 2010-2011 regular season. It should be noted that the Kings and Nets tied in suckiness so there are actually six worst teams.

Best Five:

• Chicago Bulls
• San Antonio Spurs
• Miami Heat
• Dallas Mavericks
• Los Angeles Lakers

Worst Five (actually Six worst):

• Minnesota Timberwolves
• Cleveland Cavaliers
• Toronto Raptors
• Washington Wizards
• Sacramento Kings and New Jersey Nets

When it comes to predicting the leagues best we didn't fare so well. I managed to only successfully predict 2 of the 5 teams, picking the Heat and Lakers. The (censor), Celtics and Magic all made the playoffs but all let me down. Of the teams that did make it into the top five there weren't any major surprises. The Bulls have Derrick Rose and a strong supporting cast. For the last 5-7 seasons, the Mavs and the Spurs have both been perennial bests in the NBA.

We fared much better in the five worst category, picking 4 of 5, thanks to the Kings forcing a tie with the Nets. The one team Matt missed on was the Cleveland Cavaliers. Although it was obvious they were going to suffer from the lose of Lebron, how badly they suffered was a surprise. During the middle of the season, the Cavs lost an American professonial sports record 26 straight times. It is hard to predict futility of that magnitude from a team with two previous All-stars.

Overall we went 6 for 10, which isn't that great. There is no shame in missing on the Cavs pick. However, I probably should have had the Mavs or Spurs on the list of the best five. The good news is none of the teams showed up on the wrong list.