Golden State vs. Sacramento Gets the NBA Playoffs First Round Nod

Well, U Conn is our national champion and now we get down to the serious business of the NBA Playoffs. I didn’t play One Shining Moment this year because I’m genuinely bummed on what the transfer portal has done to college hoops. I love parity, but the Portal in both football and basketball needs to be tweaked.

The OKC Thunder were eliminated from the Round Robin Play-In Tournament last night on the road by the T-Wolves in Minnesota. A horrible lopsided loss in which Karl Anthony Townes and Rudy Gobert dominated inside the paint area from start to finish.

But for the Thunder at least they gave their fanbase some real basketball games versus the tanking mode employed the previous two seasons.

Sam Presti needs to get his team a couple of bigs who can play NBA level basketball with the league’s better teams. Both Poku and Chet in street clothes to close out this season…sigh. OKC has to hope Poku and Chet aren’t busts like Markelle Fultz and Ben Simmons were in Philly during Sam Hinkie’s Process with the Sixers.

You can’t bust on the second pick in the draft and next season Chet needs to show his fragile body can adapt to the NBA level of play. I mean…if not Chet then Sam Presti will have to bring some degree of interior physicality to his team or they’ll get put out of the first round or the round robin next season as well.

But the Thunder as a whole have some real positives to build on and if nothing else they seem to have gotten the Oklahoma City fanbase watching the team again.

Golden State gets started tonight as the sicth seed in the West. Given how bad the Wrriors were on the road this season…the fact the draw turned out this way is an absolute blessing four the four-time NBA champs.

I see the West as wide open.

Steve Kerr finally has some semblance of a bench in place and Andrew Wiggins is once finally healthy. Wiggins in my view was the Warriors’ second best player last season behind Steph.

Wiggins gave the Warriors everything they needed defensively and rebounding wise to go along with Draymond and Looney. Wig filled a team role seamlessly in that regard and compensated for Klay’s diminshed role defensively. Wiggins is a big deal for the Warriors. We’ll see how how out of game shape he is later tonight in Game 1.

To me…this is the first round matchup the NBA Universe is most excited to see right now.