You thought that the trade deadline was going to make sense of this NBA season, right? The Heat were gong to establish themselves as a team nobody in the Eastern Conference would want to face in the playoffs? The Oklahoma City Thunder had a stranglehold on that eighth spot in the Western Conference? Well, you all forgot about the cruel randomness of health problems, a new wave of which hit many contenders – both bona fides and would-bes – almost immediately after Thursday’s 3pm ET deadline came and went.
Miami Heat lose Chris Bosh for the season
It was a topsy-turvy 24 hours for the Miami Heat. On Friday, just a day after making the biggest deal of the deadline, swinging a trade for the Phoenix Suns’ Goran Dragic, the Heat learned that they would likely be without the services of their most important player for the remainder of the season. Tests revealed that forward Chris Bosh had a pulmonary embolism, a potentially fatal condition involving blood clots.
The news came as a devastating blow to Miami and its chances, especially since they had just sacrificed a part of the future, in the form of the two draft picks they sent to Phoenix, for a player that was supposed to give them a puncher’s chance in the playoffs right now. With Bosh gone for the year, a team built around Dragic and the past-their-prime duo of Dwyane Wade and Luol Deng aren’t a lock to make the playoffs, not even in the Eastern Conference. If they do make it, it’s hard to see them winning a postseason series against, say, the Atlanta Hawks, Chicago Bulls or Cleveland Cavaliers.
So the timing seems inconvenient from a basketball standpoint, but in the grander scheme it was a bit of good fortune that Bosh was diagnosed when he was. If not caught in time, pulmonary embolisms can have grave consequences. Just last week former Portland Trail Blazer Jerome Kersey passed away from complications from blood clots. Bosh should be fine after undergoing treatment involving blood thinners, but side effects will unfortunately leave him too fatigued to play basketball in the short term.
Even in the high-stakes world of the NBA there’s a point where the game reveals itself to be just that. A game. Playoff pushes, postseason matchups and long-term trade implications become meaningless background noise when matters of life and death are involved. Few franchises should be as well aware of this as the Heat, who dealt with Alonzo Mourning’s life-threatening kidney disease back in the early 2000s. The only humane reaction is to hope that Bosh, who has a reputation of being one of the game’s good guys, returns to full health as quickly as possible.
Kevin Durant and Anthony Davis both out
The Heat weren’t the only team whose chances to make the playoffs took a hit over the last few days. The Oklahoma City Thunder upgraded at center by effectively replacing Kendrick Perkins with the Utah Jazz’s Enes Kanter during Thursday’s trade deadline, a move which will help them absorb the loss of Reggie Jackson, who was shipped to Detroit after essentially demanding a trade. Meanwhile, the Phoenix Suns, their biggest rivals to snatch the eighth spot in the Western Conference playoffs, took a step backwards after trading Dragic to Miami and Isaiah Thomas to the Boston Celtics, moves only somewhat offset by the fact they also acquired Brandon Knight from the Milwaukee Bucks.
Shortly after experts penciled the Thunder into that eighth slot came the news that they would once again have to survive without the services of the reigning MVP. Kevin Durant underwent a procedure to alleviate discomfort caused by an earlier treatment of his foot injury, one that will keep him out for an indeterminate amount of time. While Durant is expected to return before the end of the regular season, his absence will once again require Russell Westbrook to put the team on his shoulders. These next few weeks could either doom Oklahoma City or provide further evidence for a growing minority of fans who believe this has become Westbrook’s team.
Can the Suns take advantage? Well, on Monday night they lost to a Celtics team thanks in no small part to a 21-point performance by the just-traded Thomas. Although Thomas muffed up his debut, and partially explained why Phoenix felt OK about parting ways with him, by being thrown out of the game after picking up two technical fouls.
With the Thunder and the Suns having taken steps back, one would think that this would open up the window for the New Orleans Pelicans to grab that eighth seed in the West. Unfortunately for them, they will be without star Anthony Davis for the next 1-2 weeks after he re-aggravated a shoulder injury on Saturday.
It’s a shame because Davis would be in the conversation for MVP if the Pelicans somehow made the postseason, a doubtful proposition even if Davis were 100% healthy. As it stands, it behooves New Orleans to be as cautious as possible with their franchise player even if it means having to keep him off the floor right when the teams directly ahead of them seem the most vulnerable.
Phil Jackson has no right to complain
On Sunday, the Cleveland Cavaliers defeated the New York Knicks 101-83 at Madison Square Garden, handing the team their seventh consecutive loss that dropped their record to a NBA worst 10-45. President of basketball operations Phil Jackson was none to happy about this turn of events, jumping on Twitter to proclaim that his team had upset the Basketball Gods.
Each NBA game is an opportunity for players to show their "best" nature and please the basketball gods...and those who know what "It"takes.
— Phil Jackson (@PhilJackson11) February 23, 2015
Today's game vs Cavs gave bb gods heartburn and those that know what "it" takes/means a smh.
— Phil Jackson (@PhilJackson11) February 23, 2015
Of course it makes sense that Jackson is frustrated – you’d be too if your job required you to watch the Knicks play basketball – but at this point he is Michael Bluth opening up the package marked “DEAD DOVE - DO NOT EAT”. The only reasonable reaction he is allowed to have is, “Well, I don’t know what I expected.” If Jackson thought that the team with the worst record in the NBA would perform better against LeBron James the the Cavaliers, than that’s as much of an indictment of his judgment and expectations than anything else.
The most amusing part of Sunday’s Twitter ramblings is that if Jackson wanted to pinpoint one member of the Knicks organization most responsible for the loss to the Cavaliers, he could do worse than blame the executive who handed J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert to Cleveland for basically nothing.
Furthermore, what does he actually want the Knicks to do? Compete? Pretty much every move Jackson has made in the last few months has been designed to maximize the Knicks’ chances to fail. Which is probably the smart path considering this is a rare NBA season where they actually own their own first-round draft pick. Jackson went on Twitter to complain about a group he has thrown together specifically to suck at basketball for sucking slightly more than he had planned.
Joke about the Philadelphia 76ers as much as you want – at least they are committed to their plan and embrace their identity. Over the last few months, Jackson has been running the Knicks like a man who knows he’s made a terrible mistake but keeps stubbornly plowing ahead anyways.
Beware the Grizzlies
The Memphis Grizzlies have been feeling overlooked of late and that’s bad, bad news for the rest of the NBA. In a hard fought battle with the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday, the Grizzlies held on to a 90-87 win. The victory improved their record to 41-14 which allowed them to remain in the second slot in the Western Conference, a conference which could come down to the results of Memphis’s next two meetings with the first place Golden State Warriors.
The Grizzlies were one of the few teams who remained quiet at the trade deadline, but that’s because they had already made their major move. Memphis have gone on a 15-3 run since acquiring Jeff Green from the Celtics on 12 January. Should Memphis emerge from the West, an entirely possible turn of events, it would mean that in a season where Rajon Rondo, JR Smith, Goran Dragic, Amar’e Stoudemire, Kevin Garnett, Kendrick Perkins, Iman Shumpert, Brandon Knight, Michael Carter-Williams, KJ McDaniels, Timofey Mozgov, Isaiah Thomas, Reggie Jackson, Andre Miller and Dion Waiters all changed teams, the underrated and often flat-out dismissed Green would end up being the most important in-season acquisition.
Not that many in the Memphis lineup get much love. They’re an unsexy team without much star power. They have no Steph Curry or Kevin Durant or even a Damian Lillard. Their most famous player is probably best known by casual fans as “Pau’s Brother.” Someone at ABC probably already has lobbied for an insurance policy in case of the absolute ratings disaster of a Hawks-Grizzlies NBA Finals comes to pass.
If you ask the Grizzlies, chances are you will hear that they aren’t winning despite the lack of love they receive from the national media. They will say they are winning because of it. Players like Zach Randolph and Tony Allen don’t just play with the proverbial “chip on their shoulder” – they are personifications of the concept: Chips On The Shoulder in human form, taking out their grievances on whatever team unlucky enough to face them that day.
Memphis isn’t the most talented team in the league, or even the Western Conference, but they absolutely could be the scariest. Should they win the NBA Finals, the Grizzlies should get Werner Herzog to narrate. In a season featuring so many potential title contenders, they are the one squad that’s impossible to catch napping. That could end up making the difference.
Other things we’ve learned
• In keeping with this week’s trend: the Celtics had their own slim chances of sneaking into their conference’s eighth-seed hurt with the news that they would lose Jared Sullinger for the season thanks to a stress fracture in his left foot.
• And Larry Sanders won’t be back with the Milwaukee Bucks this season and his NBA future is completely in doubt. At this point let’s just hope he finds the peace he’s clearly missing in his life even if it has nothing to do with basketball.
• The Cleveland Cavaliers signed free agent center Kendrick Perkins. Could this be the last meaningful signing by a postseason-bound team? We may have to wait to see if Ray Allen or Jermaine O’Neal decide to un-retire.
• Ball Don’t Lie answers a very serious question: Who even plays for the 76ers now?
• The Dallas Mavericks’ Richard Jefferson with the Almost Dunk of the Year, which was wiped off the board thanks to an offensive foul.
• Sad to hear about Derrick Rose, who has suffered yet another knee injury that will require surgery. In 2011, he became the youngest MVP winner in NBA history. Since the start of the 2012-13 season, he’s missed 165 out of possible 221 games. Not good.
• Isaiah Canaan hits a crazzy buzzer-beater for the Philadelphia 76ers against the Miami Heat. So yeah, this is not the best sign for the post-Bosh Heat.
