Now that the regular season and the play-in are definitely behind us, we now know the sixteen teams qualified for the 2021 Playoffs. The perfect opportunity to look at those… who haven’t been there for a while.
If you tell yourself that going to the Playoffs is the minimum acceptable every year, then you are seeing life a little too rosy. Indeed, each franchise has experienced less good periods, this is part of the cycles that we see regularly in the League. You are crushed by injuries, you lose the face of your franchise or a legendary coach and presto, you plunge into the standings to reach the shallows. Even iconic franchises known for their success like the Boston Celtics or the Los Angeles Lakers have had their lean times without seeing the postseason for several years. Afterwards, what shows the strength of a team is also its ability to quickly bounce back to experience shortened transition phases.. And for that, some are clearly better than others… On this, if we took stock of the three teams that have been waiting for the longest to see the color of the Playoffs?
We start by doing a little high five to our Knicks and Suns fan friends. While they waited respectively for eight and eleven years, they will finally be able to vibrate again in front of matches that really matter. A real earthquake for our classification because Knicks and Suns had until then occupied the second and third step of the podium. To replace them, two teams which have shown progress this season without winning the Grail. We are of course talking about the Hornets and the Bulls, a duo that… Memphis left last night. Both have been penalized by a lot of injuries this year and we have had to compose without the leaders on several occasions. Not the best when you have to keep pace with the teams pushing ahead. Chicago is therefore waiting to find the Top 8 of its conference since 2017 and the highlights of the triplet Butler-Wade-Rondo (…). For Charlotte it is even further because we have to go back to 2016 and a defeat in 7 games against the Heat in the first round. A little embarrassing moment for our friends from North Carolina because they haven’t won a series of Playoffs since… 2002 and if MJ’s franchise shines with its stability, it is above all that it remains at the bottom of the standings. We will end up with the undisputed and indisputable leader in this exercise: the inimitable Sacramento Kings. No more spring games for the Kings since 2006, i.e. fifteen long years, at the time the leaders were called Mike Bibby, Ron Artest or Brad Miller… By missing the qualification in 2021, the Kings even equaled the record for the longest series without Playoffs which belonged to the Clippers (1977-1991), and they will therefore try next season not to set a new embarrassing record. For it ? We will have to hope that Luke Walton is a little more inspired in 2022 (sigh).
New York and Phoenix have long been among the worst students in the League but now they are freed from this weight. Charlotte and Chicago have taken over and they will try to quickly hook up the right car so as not to become the new Turkish faces of the fans. Don’t panic, there is always something worse than you. Well, up to a point, up to the Kings what.
Source texte : Land of Basket / Real GM
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