NBA Season Postmortem

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Every company probably has its quirks, and mine has plenty. When I started, I vowed that I wouldn't start saying things like, "I don't have enough bandwidth to take on that task" or "let's take that conversation offline," but now I say dumb things like that all day long. Every quarter I also attend mandatory BUMs (Business Update Meetings), as well as the occasional DUM (Division Update Meeting), and often after a project is over, I take part in a "postmortem."

Now that the NBA season is dead, it's probably time for postmortem on that (or a 'SUP - Season Update Post - as it is more commonly known), particularly since I promised at the start of the season to hold myself accountable for my predictions (knowing, of course, that this is just a blog and that I have no accountability to anyone). I scored a 4 out of 10 last year, and I'm not really sure if that's good or bad. I mean, .400 is the goal if you are Chipper Jones but is probably not that great for a weatherman or an doctor.

Let's see how I did this time. Again, the scale is scale of 0 (moronic) to 1 (brilliant).

1. The Jazz will NOT be 41-41 as predicted by Bill Simmons. [1 - 54-28]
   
2. I will not win my fantasy basketball league. [If I could score a 1.5 here, I would, but I'll stick with a 1. I was like 800 games under .500.]
   
3. If the Suns make some sort of midseason move to bring in more size, they will win the NBA title. If not, they won't. [If I could score a -0.5 here, I would, but I'll stick with a 0. They did bring in the most size possible and still didn't win.]
   
4. Jerry Sloan will not win Coach of the Year. [1 - I got the "gimme" points I was shooting for here.]
   
5. I will attend at least four Suns games this year. [0 - I only went to 1. I have to plan ahead more this year, because all of their games sell out early.]
   
6. If the Celtics stay healthy this year, they will win the East easily. [1 - they won by a full 7 games.]
   
7. Kevin Durant will win Rookie of the Year, but it won't be unanimous. [1 - 90 out of 125 first-place votes.]
   
8. The NBA Finals will have at least three times higher TV ratings than last year. [0 - It was better - averaged a 9.3 rating, up 50 percent over the 6.2 last year - but not that much better.]
   
9. TNT will do some ridiculous tie-in to a movie during their playoff coverage. [1 - Indiana Jones]
   
10. The toughest position for which to get an All-Star roster spot will be PG in the Western Conference - someone who should be on the team will be left off. [1 - I don't know if there's even an argument here - Deron Williams was left off, and he's probably one of the top 15-20 players in the NBA and on the Olympic team now.]
    

So, we're up to 7-out-of-10. With that kind of turnaround, I feel a bit like Kevin Garnett, although I'm much less likely to swear on national TV. Granted, this is sort of like doing better on a test where you make up the questions.