We made it to second round, folks. Well, not Pat Beverley. But we, the esteemed participants in this year’s Big Shot Bob (Rob) Playoff Tournament, made it here. It’s pretty wild that this marks the 15th BSB(R). Equally remarkable is that I’ve never come close to winning. More notable, still, is the longtime participation of some you folks, some of whom aren’t major basketball fans anymore. Most incredible, of course, is that we have a participant who is 99 years old (I’m looking at you, Bernard “Cousy” Chovitz.
Anyway, you all didn’t come here for my sentimentality, you came to see your place in the standings. And I like to give the people what they want, so without further adieu:
Got ’em. Of course I wasn’t going to just give the standings without some analysis of the picks. I know the above table is a lot of information, and if I were more tech-savvy, I’d find a way a more sophisticated way of displaying it instead of simply inserting “Screenshot 2024-05-09 at 9.11.46 AM.” Alas, I’m an elder millennial (by the way, the biggest thing we elder millennials missed out on was not growing up with Bird and Magic. Sigh).
Okay, what are the takeaways here?
- All 44 people picked the Celtics and Thunder to advance, and 43/44 picked the Nuggets…no surprises there. Only 8/44 people picked the Sixers to upset the Knicks; I thought more would tie there hopes to Embiid (then again, why would anyone do that given his playoff history?). 11/44 picked the Pacers, and with Giannis’ injury and Doc Rivers as the Bucks’ coach, they clearly made the right call. One popular first round upset pick was the Suns over the Wolves (15/44). Maybe if the Wolves weren’t allowed to throw double teams, the results would have been different. The group was most divided on Clippers-Mavs: 24/44 people had Luka and company advancing to the second round. In speaking of which…
- Everyone (!) predicted the Celtics to advance to the conference finals. Elsewhere in the East, things were trickier: 29 people had a Knicks-Bucks matchup (with the Bucks voted to advance for 18/29). But for the 7 people who had Knicks-Pacers, people had the Knicks advancing more (6/7). The 8 people who liked the Sixers to upset like them in round (well, 6 of them at least).
- Of the 24 people who predicted Mavs-Thunder to meet in Rounnd 2, the crowd was perfect split. Similarly, 12/20 people had the Thunder over. the Clippers. Not a ton of faith for a one-seed. But the two-seeded Wolves got even less respect; not only were they commonly picked to get upset but the Suns, but 3/28 people picked them beat the Nuggets.
- Things were pretty simply in the ECF: 38/44 people had the Celtics advancing to the Finals. The Bucks had 4 picks, and the Knicks and Sixers each had 1. In the West things were lopsided but a bit more nuanced…30/44 people had the Nuggets advancing, followed by the Thunder (5), Wolves (3), Clippers (2), Mavs (2), and Suns (2)
- What about the Finals? 20/44 people had the Celtics, and 16/44 people had the Nuggets. And in the often-predicted Celtics-Nuggets matchup, the Celtics were narrowly favored (14/26).
Finally, the standings.
They don’t call him Tanc for no reason. Fresh off receiving his belated prize from his 2023 victory, the defending champion is back for more. Tanc pulled this off despite predicting one of the series outcomes wrong (Suns vs. Wolves). Eben is right behind, and he also correctly predicted all eight winners (The Younger Gainsbird was the only other person to correctly guess all eight winners. Both he and Eben are statistical savants in their day-to-day lives, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised.)
Brad, P-Wu, and the Younger Gainsbird round out the top 5. Like Eben, all would be first time winners, so no matter what, they’d be making history. Personally, though, I’m pulling for the Younger Gainsbird–he needs all the help he can get, nowadays.
I’d also like to give some perspective on the bottom-feeders. You may think, “How do they have so few points? They must be really bad a predicting things!” But look at their first-round predictions–all of them are reasonable! Let’s instead celebrate their low scores as beautiful signs of unpredictability and randomness–two keys to making basketball, and dare I say life, more interesting.
Finally, some first round thoughts…
- Knicks-Sixers was fun. Maxey and Embiid both had some huge games, but the best player in the series was Jalen Brunson. He’s unstoppable right now, and finished the series with games of 39, 47, 40, and 41-point games. Legendary stuff.
- The rest of the East was a snooze: Celtics-Heat was marred by Jimmy Butler’s absence; Bucks-Pacers was marred by the absence of Giannis and partial-absence of Lillard; and Cavs-Magic, although a seven-game series with monster performances, was still Cavs-Magic. And don’t get me started on the injuries for Kristaps, Julius Randle, and Jarrett Allen,
- Jamal Murray was clutch, with two high-degree-of-difficulty game winners in the first round. Although the Lakers lost in 5, the series felt close.
- The Wolves embarrassed the Suns. Between Beal’s comments about how he would never be swept and Booker’s comments about their team being unguardable, this was fugly. The Wolves, on the other hand, proved their championship bonafides.
- Like the East, the West also featured notable injuries in Kawhi and Zion. It’s 2024–when can I start having an injury-free playoffs?
Who are your picks to win, both the playoffs and the BSB(R) tourney? Comment on the article or email us at AGRbasketball (at) gmail (dot) com. Don’t forget to follow @AGRbasketball on Twitter and to like us on Facebook
Alone In The Green Room 
great stuff commissioner Gainsburg