The Whiteboard: NBA Playoffs seeding in the Western Conference will be wild

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We’ve reached a point that is becoming a tradition in the NBA’s Western Conference, where it is no longer very helpful to refer to a team in the playoff hunt as their current seed. The third-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder, for example, are just a half-game ahead of the Houston Rockets, a game ahead of the Portland Trail Blazers, and just 2.5 games ahead of the sixth-seeded Utah Jazz.

There are divisions in the standings with the Golden State Warriors at the top, but even the Warriors have just a one-game lead over the second-seeded Denver Nuggets. The Nuggets then have a nice cushion of 3.5 games between themselves and the morass calling itself the third through fifth seed.

After Utah in sixth comes the seventh-seeded San Antonio Spurs, who have the same record as the eighth-seeded Los Angeles Clippers. The Sacramento Kings are four games behind the Clippers, and the Los Angeles Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves lie a further two and a half games back. Those last three teams are probably out of it at this point, pending a big disaster for San Antonio or the Clippers.

The eight teams in the top eight spots are probably going to all make the playoffs, but their exact seeding is yet to be determined. The Spurs and Clippers will battle (or maybe tank) to determine who plays the Nuggets and who plays the Warriors, while the Jazz, Thunder, Blazers and Rockets all jockey for homecourt advantage for as long as they can get it.

The Warriors probably don’t care because it doesn’t matter, and Denver should want to be first because it’d be the best thing the Nuggets have done in quite a while, and easily in the Nikola Jokic era. The Western Conference is wild, which should make these last several games pretty entertaining out West.

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