Hoop Talk - The NBA Roundup for March 2017

Written by Zeke Perez Jr.

(Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)

Time flies when you’re having fun and this NBA season has flown by. With over three quarters of the regular season in the books, the intensity across the league is about to fire up. Playoff seeds and regular season awards are at stake. As teams and players jockey for position, here are a few things to keep an eye on in March.
 
The Hateful 8th
Gold Nuggets. Trail Blazers. Mavericks. Timberwolves. The contentious hunt for the 8th seed in the wild, wild Western Conference feels like it could have come straight from a Western flick. The West’s final playoff spot is up for grabs. As it stands now, the Denver Nuggets currently hold the spot with a 29-34 record. The Portland Trail Blazers are just 1.5 games behind them, though, with the Dallas Mavericks (2.5 games behind) and the Minnesota Timberwolves (3.5 GB) hot on the trail. Heck, even the current 12th and 13th seeds are still in it, as the Sacramento Kings (4 GB) and the New Orleans Pelicans (4.5 GB) can still make a play. All of these teams have losing records and none of them have necessarily been outstanding. With only about 20 games to go, it’s easily still anyone’s race. Each of these teams is eager to make its return to the postseason. All it takes is a foot in the door.
 
The Injury Bug Bites
It’s about that time of the year when NBA rosters look like MASH units. A few big names have been lost around the league, including a couple players on top contending teams. The Golden State Warriors just lost Kevin Durant for a month after he suffered a severe MCL sprain. The Warriors should get him back in time to push for the title, as they hope that the splashy free agent signing wasn’t all for naught. On the NBA’s other top squad, the Cleveland Cavaliers lost Andrew Bogut after just over 50 seconds of playing time. The Cavs signed Bogut on March 2nd to try and fill in for Kevin Love, who is out with a knee injury and some back problems. Then, just four days later, Bogut fractured his tibia a minute into his debut. Both of these teams will look to make adjustments to fight off the injury bug.
 
More Hardware than Home Depot
With fewer than 20 games remaining in the NBA regular season, the award races are getting clearer! Or…at least they should be. More confusion than clarity has settled upon debates over who will take home hardware at the end of the season. The MVP race is a hot mess as it has been all year and the Rookie of the Year (ROY) race is suddenly just as jumbled. For MVP, James Harden looks to be the frontrunner among some voters, despite the fact that Russell Westbrook is still averaging a triple-double. Kawhi Leonard has appeared as a formidable dark horse candidate, while LeBron is always in the mix. Essentially, the waters have only grown muddier, causing some debate in basketball circles as to what an MVP should be. Should the award go to, as the name states, a player that is the most valuable to his team? Should it still go to a player who means a lot to his team if his team isn’t any good? Or does the team have to be a playoff contender? Should it just go to the player with the best stats? The “right answer” varies from voter to voter. As for ROY, what was once an easy decision is now up for grabs thanks to the injury to Joel Embiid. Embiid won the Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month award in November, December, and January. After his season-ending injury in February, however, ROY is not guaranteed. Some argue that he should still get ROY because he was so dominant in the three months he played. Others argue that only playing half the year is not enough of a body of work to merit a ROY award. We’ll see where voters stand on both of these complicated issues in just a few short months.
 
Rebounds: A Look Back
Updates on the storylines from February’s Hoop Talk

• Welp… after my glowing review last month of the progress Joel Embiid has made this season, the unfortunate happened. As mentioned earlier, Embiid was recently injured. He tore the meniscus in his left knee and an MRI revealed the injury to be extremely serious, sidelining him for the remainder of the season. Best wishes to “The Process” on a speedy recovery and an amazing season next year!
• The Chicago Bulls are continuing to play perfectly average basketball, going 8-8 in their last 16 games. They’re hanging on to the 8th seed in the Eastern Conference, so the raucous club might end up in the postseason in spite of its locker room tensions.
• This year’s All-Star Weekend was… kind of a flop. The highlight was the Three-Point Contest, but even that was followed by Steph Curry attempting to make a half-court shot to raise money for the late Craig Sager’s charity… and bricking all 10 attempts. The Dunk Contest was painful, with too many failed attempts and bad gimmicks (I’m looking at you, drone dropping a basketball). The game itself was no better. In recent years, it has turned into a low-intensity, joke of an exhibition with no defense played. This year, that trend hit its lowest point in a 192-182 Western Conference win. It was all so bad that commish Adam Silver announced that the game needs a reset. The format will change in 2018. 

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