Did you hear the one about the surfer who decided to propose to his girlfriend while they were riding the waves together – and then promptly dropped the ring in the ocean?
Or the one about the man who wanted so badly to leave his wife that he robbed a bank to pay for his getaway – and then got caught and sentenced to, yes, home confinement?
What about the basketball team that was so determined to avoid facing the previous season’s winner in a first-round playoff series, that it lost a postseason play-in game on purpose?
The team that chose not to book its ticket to the playoffs proper and instead opted to partake in a one-game, win-or-go-home tightwire tussle against either the Golden State Warriors, four-time NBA champs, or the Sacramento Kings, whom this team in question hasn’t beaten in four tries this season?
The first two scenarios are true. The last one is not. Because c’mon.
These are the Los Angeles Lakers, a group of guys from Ohio and Illinois, Arkansas and California – there’s only one Florida man on the roster, two-way center Colin Castleton, and he doesn’t figure to have any say in the matter.
In the planet’s long, disgraceful list of Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prize-losers, the Lakers would cement their status near the top if they did what some pundits are proposing and punted against the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday in the No. 7 vs. No. 8 play-in game.
If they listened to the likes of ESPN’s Mike Greenberg, who on Monday advocated for the Lakers to take a deliberate L.
Mike Greenberg says the Lakers should rest LeBron James and Anthony Davis tomorrow and tank vs the Pelicans
( @GetUpESPN) pic.twitter.com/sbuIcsRnrA
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) April 15, 2024
On “Get Up,” he explained: “I know that it flies in the face of absolutely everything the spirit of competition was born to create … the Lakers should not play tomorrow night. They should not play LeBron. They should not play A.D. They do not want to be the 7 seed; you want to be the 8! I’m taking my chances in a one-and-done at home against either Sacramento or Golden State and go win against the very young (top-seeded) OKC Thunder in round one instead of going into the buzzsaw that is Denver.
“It is worth the risk.”
There’s a reason they’ve started instituting “no selfie zones” on mountain peaks and atop tall buildings.
Forget that the basketball gods might frown at the notion of throwing a game, it’s that we’re talkin’ about the play-in! Cold, hard science. Darwin’s theory of survive-and-advance, wherein, at the end of the NBA playoffs, the fittest prevail.
And people think it would be smart to delay what’s likely an inevitable Mile High matchup with the NBA’s two-time reigning MVP, the 6-foot-11 magician Nikola Jokic? That, somehow, 39-year-old LeBron James will have more in his tank in the Western Conference finals than in Round One? That Anthony Davis will be a more effective deterrent around the rim after he’s been poked in the eye another six or seven times?
Seriously. People think it’d be appropriate to schedule less time for rest (and game-planning) ahead of a potential playoff gauntlet. That it would be better to go running and gunning with the Kings or chasing after Golden State’s Steph Curry. And for what? A matchup with the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder, the NBA’s second-youngest team?
Such an unserious notion.
But some of these guys – not-so-wise on this matter – insist, as ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith did: “If the Los Angeles Lakers win tomorrow night against the New Orleans Pelicans, they go up against the Denver Nuggets in the first round, which means they’re going the hell home.”
Or, by Greenberg’s estimation: “The Nuggets are the one team the Lakers have no chance to beat. Realistically, no chance to beat.”
Realistically, there’s no chance that LeBron has ever gone into a contest with no chance.
The man defeated the Goon Squad in “Space Jam 2,” for crying out loud.
That doesn’t mean I’m over here calling the upset. I don’t expect the Lakers would beat No. 2 Denver as it begins its quest for title No. 2.
But I’d put down the Sharpie before writing off any team featuring James and Davis. Their team got swept by the Nuggets last season, true, and win is a win is a win … is a win. But the Nuggets’ Western Conference finals series victory was deceptively close.
The Lakers lost those games by a total of 24 points. And even Game 3 – which Denver won 119-108 – featured a fourth-quarter Lakers lead.
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The Nuggets gentleman’s sweep over the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals – four victories by a combined 44 points – felt far less competitive and far more like a foregone conclusion.
The NBA’s play-in offers no such predictability. Ask the Clippers, who in 2022 finished the regular season seeded eighth but lost consecutive play-in games, first at Minnesota and then at home to the Pelicans on April 15 – the morning that their star Paul George was ruled out because of COVID.
Life doesn’t care about betting odds or expert projections or hot takes, it’s just going to keep happening.
Best way to ride that wave? Don’t play stupid games with the play-in.
