Draymond Green Suggests It's Actually Better For A Team To Lose In The First Round Than It Is To Lose In The Finals

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I'm not sure about anyone else, but this wait for the NBA Finals to start has been pretty brutal. I know on the calendar it says that we've only had to go a few days without playoff basketball, but to my idiot brain, it feels 10x longer. Tomorrow night cannot come soon enough.

Part of the gap between games leading into the Finals is that it provides ample time for everyone to toss out takes left and right as a way to pass the time. Some of what we get are your usual moronic hot takes that make no goddamn sense, like this

Some are fake trade rumors or free agency leaks, thankfully the Thibs news gave us something actually real to talk about to fill this void, but as we saw at this time last year, this is the time of the NBA calendar where people try and be bold, they try and go viral, and then at the end of the day they just end up being part of a shit talking video from whoever the champs end up being

But for the sake of this blog, I want to focus on a "hot take" that came across my timeline from Draymond Green. Let's have a listen together, shall we?

Listen, you may not agree with Draymond Green on much, but if the topic is deep playoff runs and winning or losing an NBA Finals, the man does have the experience and qualifications to weigh in. 

This debate as to whether it's better to lose early in the playoffs or late isn't really new, it's been around forever. Ever heard the MJ vs LeBron debate? As we have seen throughout history, losing in the Finals does get held against a player more than that player losing in the first round. I'm not exactly sure why, but that's how it goes for whatever reason. 

So when I hear this take from Draymond, I tend to look at it through two different lenses. 

There's the player side and the team side. If we're talking about someone's career and all that, then I do not think making deep playoff runs and losing should be seen as a negative mark on that player's resume. Maybe that's just a me thing, but that's how my brain works. Losing in the Finals as a player should not be more of a knock on that guy than if he had never even made the Finals. I never really understood that part of the LeBron vs MJ debate or really any player debate, honestly. LeBron's Finals losses hurt him more than Jordan's previous early playoff exits? Why?

But then there's also the team side, and this is where I kind of see Draymond's point. From a team perspective, if you are truly not close to winning the Finals, then it making it and losing may do more harm than good. Not all deep runs are equal when it comes to team and roster evaluations, and I think recent NBA history has shown us that. You take a look at a team like the Heat and their magical deep run to the 2023 Finals. They weren't close to winning that title, but they made the Finals. That organization/Pat Riley bought into the talent level and roster construction and didn't do anything to close the gap. They got high on their own supply and simply ran things back as is. As a result, we saw how that turned out.

You could make the case that this is also exactly what the Knicks just did as well. They didn't make the Finals, but it's clear they had this line of thinking after their ECF loss. They most likely did not believe they were as "close" to a title as their playoff run suggested, so they pivoted. Will that be the right decision? Time will tell, but I think that's sort of what Draymond is referencing. The challenge when you make the Finals and lose is understanding how close you actually were, and how much of the run was circumstance. We also saw this with the 2023 Celts who had a similar fork in the road moment after their ECF loss. That team was coming off a Finals (which they lost), made another deep playoff run (and lost), and as a result it was clear to Brad Stevens that he had to make drastic changes to the roster to get the team over the hump, and his approach worked. 

Where I will absolutely agree with Draymond is losing in the Finals fucking sucks. Especially if you're able to win a couple of games and still fall short. To be so close and not win is devastating. If you somehow lose a Finals in a Game 7 due to a bullshit Ron Artest 3PA an inability of anyone on the roster to grab a defensive rebound? That shit changes your life forever. 

So where I net out is from a player standpoint, I have to disagree that losing in the first round is better than losing in a Finals, if we're talking about their careers. I'll always believe it's better to get there and lose, then never get there at all.

But from a team perspective, I can see the damage of what I would call a "fugazi" Finals run can do when it comes to the future of the team/roster construction/coaching etc. If that team had maybe lost in the first round, perhaps that would have sparked the change that was needed, instead of being fooled by a run that was actually never close to reaching the top of the mountain.