The NBA playoffs begin on Saturday afternoon. Well, for a few teams, a playoff-like thing kicked off earlier this week with the play-in tournament, but the proper NBA postseason tips off this afternoon, leading to a months-long frenzy to determine which team will end one of the weirdest years in league history with the Larry O’Brien trophy in their possession.
Before this kicks off, we wanted to partake in a thought experiment: What if every NBA team in the postseason could only have their team name suit up and take the floor? For example, for the Los Angeles Lakers, they would be represented by five people from the great state of Minnesota, while the Milwaukee Bucks were represented by five horned deer. There is no good reason for us to do this, but we are, anyway.
A NON-TANGIBLE THING
16. Jazz
As any good jazz musician will tell you, Jazz is at its best when it is something you feel deep in your soul. This makes it absolutely terrible for making up a basketball team. The noise made by a damn saxophone can’t play basketball. Get the heck out of here.
INANIMATE OBJECTS
15. Nets
14. Nuggets
13. Clippers
The ball would be thrown into the air for the tipoff and then just bounce and lay there. All of these things would sit on the floor and not do anything. The game would end 0-0. They are listed above in the order of how much they are all worth — nets on a basketball hoop you can get for a few dollars, a nugget of gold is pricy, a boat is really pricy. Onward.
ANIMALS
12. Bucks
11. Mavericks
10. Hawks
9. Grizzlies
Of these animals, it is hardest to see a path forward for a Buck. Maybe it is able to, like, stab the ball with one of its antlers and then find some way to unwedge it using the rim, but come on, that would be ridiculous. Canonically, a Maverick is a horse (the canon is that one really weird Houston Rockets tweet about putting down a horse because they beat the Mavs in a basketball game), and YouTube tells me horses can be trained to play basketball. A hawk can just scoop up a ball and drop it in. Really dangerous 10-seed here. Also dangerous: Doing Sports against a bear, let alone five of them.
PEOPLE
8. 76ers
7. Trail Blazers
6. Celtics
5. Lakers
4. Knicks
Both 76ers and Trail Blazers are last because they are named after, respectively, the people who signed the Declaration of Independence and those who blazed trails (do you get it) to the pacific northwest. The point: They’re all dead and would suck at basketball right now. Leprechauns would not be particularly good, while people who live in the Land of 10,000 Lakes and people from New York (Lakers and Knickerbockers, respectively) would generally be pretty fine! Chet Holmgren and Paige Bueckers are good! So are the myriad of NBA and WNBA players from New York! Anyway,,,
A BRIEF INTERRUPTION TO DISCUSS THE HEAT
3. Heat
Have you ever played basketball when it’s hot out? Absolutely sucks. When Heat gets real bad, in particular, god, going outside stinks. I can imagine a scenario where it is too hot for someone from Minnesota or New York, or a Leprechaun, or a dead person struggle to play basketball. There are some days in New York where it’s so dang hot that you get on the subway and come off looking like you just ran a marathon. No thanks.
PEOPLE WHO WOULD NOT BE BOTHERED BY THE HEAT
2. Wizards
I have not read the Harry Potter books in a while but if I recall correctly, there is a spell that wizards can use to conjure up water, which helps them defeat the heat. There is also the fact that they are powerful fictional characters and, per one Google search I did, can modify the weather via charms.
THE SUN
1. Suns
The sun. The f*cking sun. Imagine five of them. You’re not playing basketball. In fact, there would probably be problems far more serious than playing basketball if you got five suns next to each other. I don’t know what they’d be because I am merely a blogger and not an astronomer, but this would destroy the ability to play basketball altogether, along with doing anything else, if five stars were to be directly next to one another. Too powerful, sorry.
