Best of the mid-west

The NBA's second season started yesterday. Right on schedule, King Kaufman posted his analysis showing the first round is basically meaningless:

In the 20 years since the playoffs expanded to 16 teams, 8 seeds have won two of 40 series against 1 seeds. That's a winning percentage of .050. Seven seeds are 4-36 (.100) against 2s, while 6 seeds are 11-29 (.275) against 3s. If you could be transported in time to a randomly chosen game involving the worst team of all time, the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers, you'd have a 10.9 percent chance of seeing them win. That's better than the 7.5 percent chance you would have of seeing an underdog winner if you were randomly dropped into a playoff series involving a 7 or 8 seed.

The largely superfluous first round contributes to the feeling--especially over the past few years--that the NBA playoffs are a forced march to a foregone conclusion. Maybe this will be a year of upsets. We hope.

I'm pulling for the T'Wolves in the West and the Pacers in the East. A best of the mid-west finals might not generate great ratings, but it's a great match-up.