AROUND the NBA:

[Chicagojk]

A couple of observations about this years' playoffs:

Teams we viewed as very strong can quickly look weak.

Teams we viewed as pretty weak can quickly look strong.

Players we view as expensive, one-dimensional, and washed-up (Marcus Smart, CJ McCollum) can be key contributors on winning teams.

The gap between pretty good and pretty weak teams is actually small.  A single player or coach can swing things dramatically.

If you subscribe to the "winner" and "loser" categorization of players (or coaches, or GM's), you will miss quality contributors, or overvalue mediocre ones.

Timelines and windows open and close rapidly.  It's really hard to anticipate when a team might be good or bad, or when injuries will decimate a team's chances.

I agree with most of this.    It seems like the game is changing.  Gone are most of the pure point guards.  Mostly gone is the slow build of sucking for 5 years and building up a plethora of young guys to stick together for 10 years.    It is not completely gone, but I think you find your star and then find your co-star and mostly the rest of the guys are a rotating cast every few years.  even the co star could be tricky...if that co star thinks he wants to be the star.     It just sucks the top two teams set up to dominant are really close to Dallas.   

I also agree with Smart and McCollum.    McCollum was near all star in Portland.   Probably not the ideal fit with DAme but they mostly made it work (despite him being in trade rumors every years).  He was pretty good in New Orleans but that was a moribund franchise.   In Washington it was as bad as you can get as a veteran.    He finds the right spot and looks very good again.  These type of veterans are all over the league.   Good players that need the right spot.   The tricky part is getting your star.  So much opens up once you do.   Heck you can add Kennard to Smart.   Kennard got a yawn at the trade deadline.  A guy who fits what you want but just seems to lose minutes as he times goes on.    He was a mid first round pick and now is on a hot streak.