The NBA is back tonight, as the Cavs host the Celtics and the Warriors host the Rockets. Those four teams figure to be featured prominently in the playoffs come May and June, and it’s very possible, if not probable, two of those four could meet in the Finals.
While June feels like a long way away, the start of the season is always a time for predictions, because we can’t help ourselves but think six months ahead knowing fully well that most of what we say is wrong. There are a lot of prediction models out there that use finely tuned statistical analysis to predict the outcome of the season, and those are great, but not very fun.
We here at Dime prefer to turn to video games, because they tend to predict chaos and chaos is way more fun than the likely truth which is another Warriors-Cavs Finals. NBA Live 18 got really crazy and called for a Wolves-Sixers NBA Finals, and NBA 2K18 also saw the Warriors going down in the Conference Finals. While those are great, I prefer to go a bit more old school and choose to base my predictions off of the tried and true method that is Oregon Trail.
For those that have read my Oregon Trail previews before, you can skip this part where I explain the process. For those that haven’t, here’s the quick and dirty on how I do these. First, the “Wagon Leader” is never an actual team because nothing happens to them until everyone else dies, therefore, it’s no fun. So, the four other spots get filled by team names in random order and sent down the trail on grueling pace and bare bones rations to create the worst health conditions and thus, kill teams off one-by-one. At rivers, I always caulk and float to, again, create the most random outcome (fording ends in death too much to even be funny).
To predict the season, we have to do a lot of simulations. First, I sent the five teams I’m confident won’t make the playoffs (or at least, have the worst odds of making the playoffs) down just to get funny screencaps of them. Those teams were the Hawks, Bulls, Nets, Knicks, and Magic in the East, and the Suns, Lakers, Kings, Mavs, and Pelicans in the West. Then, to determine playoff seeding, the four teams battling for the final two spots in each conference were sent down the trail, with the first two to die missing the playoffs.
In the West, the Clippers get the sixth seed by default, while the 2-5 seeds were determined by a run down the trail. In the East, the Cavs and Celtics get the top two seeds with the 3-6 seeds being determined by the trail. From there, it’s playoff matchups. For the sake of brevity (and my sanity), the top two seeds in each conference move on automatically in the first round, but every other playoff series is determined by the trail.
Here are the results:
Playoff Bracket:
East:
Cavs (1) v. Hornets (8)
Celtics (2) v. Sixers (7)
Bucks (3) v. Heat (6)
Raptors (4) v. Wizards (5)
West:
Warriors (1) v. Blazers (8)
Spurs (2) v. Jazz (7)
Thunder (3) v. Clippers (6)
Wolves (4) v. Rockets (5)
A sampling of the carnage from the playoff seeding trail runs:
Alright, so let’s get to these postseason matchups, starting with Thunder-Clippers. For first round series, each team gets two of the four spots. First to have a death loses. Here we go.
The Thunder get off to an absolutely terrible start, with multiple broken bones.
But they hang tough and keep battling, forcing the Clippers into some adversity of their own.
The Thunder have completely lost their way in the series though, and it appears their trio of stars just can’t get on the same page.
If you’re counting at home that’s two broken arms and a broken leg, but like the black knight in Monty Python, they are not dead yet and again force the Clippers into a spot of bother.
However, if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times. You can survive broken bones, but once you can’t control your bowel movements, it’s a wrap for you in a playoff series.
The Clippers advance to Round 2 and Paul George is probably exiting OKC after a first round defeat.
Our next matchup is Wolves-Rockets to finish off the West’s first round, and the young Wolves get off to a rough start.
However, James Harden stumbles across a strip club ahead of Game 2, which opens the door a bit for Minnesota (idk what happened to the date and such here).
Naturally, the Rockets don’t fare particularly well after this excursion and the series gets evened up.
However, the Wolves just don’t have enough experience on the playoff trail to handle the Rockets and it falls apart on them.
The Rockets advance and the Wolves get a learning experience. To the East!
We begin with Bucks-Heat in a sneaky fun 3-6 matchup, where the Bucks have some early issues.
Milwaukee goes into an 0-2 hole quickly, but battle back on the road for Game 3.
I mean, they are the Heat, so, yeah, they have a fever.
The Bucks catch Heat fever and that’s never a good thing, but Milwaukee again battles back to make it a competitive series.
But alas, the Bucks can’t make the incredible comeback.
Heat in 6.
The final first round series is Wizards-Raptors, where Washington gets out of the gate terribly and never recovers.
The Wizards may be falling apart, but it wouldn’t be the NBA playoffs without the Raptors crapping the bed at least once in the first round. Even the Trail knows this.
Even so, the Wizards can’t make this competitive and the Raptors move on.
Now we’re in the second round and this time, just because I’m realizing this is getting really long, we’re speeding it up and going to throw all four teams from each conference down the trail, with the first to die from each matchup losing. Let’s get weird!
So, in the West we have Warriors-Rockets and Spurs-Clippers. Let’s begin, as the Spurs-Clippers series is far more interesting early on.
Finally, we get some news from the Rockets-Warriors series, where unsurprisingly it’s the Rockets in trouble.
However, we get our first potential crack in the Warriors’ armor shortly after.
Do you see what your new anti-rest rules have done, NBA?! Anyways, back to Clippers-Spurs which is an absolute bloodbath.
Spurs in 6 and into the conference finals to face…the Warriors of course.
Even in the video game world, the Warriors don’t have much competition, at least yet. Onward to the East where we have Cavs-Raptors and Celtics-Heat.
Early on, things aren’t going well for our top seeds, as both seem to be having a bit of an issue flipping the switch.
The Heat also have some struggles, and we look destined for another long series.
However, the Trail, like most of us likely will be feeling come playoff time, has apparently had enough Eastern Conference basketball for this year and decides to KILL EVERYONE OFF.
The Trail knows the Eastern Conference Playoffs really don’t matter, so why bother, and I for one respect this decision. Let’s get to the de facto Finals, aka the Western Conference Finals, and figure out who is going to win it all. Once again, they each get two slots, first to die loses.
Kevin Durant is too busy battling with Twitter trolls from his alternate account to even show up to Game 1. Not a good start for the reigning champs.
An act of god might be the only thing that could prevent a Warriors’ repeat and that’s what we have on the Trail now. (NOTE: the Spurs suffered a broken arm in this spot but I accidentally hit spacebar and skipped through that before getting a screenshot.)
A wild Kobe Bryant appears! #MambaMentality.
Three days apart! The Warriors are in serious trouble as they have no working legs.
The Spurs have done it! The Trail clearly subscribes to the theory that if Kawhi Leonard wasn’t knocked out of last year’s series the Spurs would’ve rolled just like they did for the first 26 minutes of the game. With the entire East being taken out of contention by the Trail, that makes the Spurs your 2017-18 NBA champions. Gregg Popovich elects to go to the White House, shocking many, but he then hits Donald Trump with a Stone Cold stunner.
