On an episode of The Lowe Post podcast last month, guest Chris Vernon posed an interesting question: When was the last time neither of the top two seeds in a conference was among the two favorites to win it?
The Utah Jazz and Phoenix Suns will both have home-court advantage up through a possible meeting against each other in the conference finals. Yet neither Phoenix nor Utah is favored to win the West. Despite needing the play-in tournament to secure a spot in the playoffs, the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers have the best odds, at +200, according to Caesars Sportsbook by William Hill, with the No. 4 seed LA Clippers (+250) also ahead of the Jazz (+300) and Suns (+800).
Why aren't Phoenix and Utah getting more love? And just what does regular-season success mean in a singular season? As the West's top two prepare to face opponents from the play-in tournament, let's break it down.
Unprecedented West favorites
First, let's answer Vernon's question.
According to championship odds entering the postseason as compiled by SportsOddsHistory.com, it's never happened since the playoffs expanded to 16 teams in 1985.
It's been reasonably common for a team outside the top two seeds to have the second-best odds of winning the title in its conference -- particularly back when seeding was more tied to divisions, meaning the No. 3 seed often had home-court advantage over the No. 2 seed in the conference semifinals. More recently, last year's Boston Celtics (seeded third) and the 2018-19 Houston Rockets (seeded fourth) had the second-best odds to win their respective conferences.
48494a; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">For the conference favorite to come from outside the top two seeds is far less common. Per SportsOddsHistory.com, it's happened just three times in the modern playoff era: the 1994-95 Chicago Bulls, the No. 5 seed who saw Michael Jordan come out of retirement in February; the 2003-04 Detroit Pistons, the No. 3 seed (with home court in the second round) after dealing for Rasheed Wallace at the trade deadline; and the LeBron James-led 2017-18 Cleveland Cavaliers, who were the No. 4 seed.
What we're seeing in this year's West, then, is unprecedented in contemporary NBA history on two levels: both that the top two seeds aren't among the top two favorites and that the Lakers are favorites from the bottom of the playoff bracket.
The trend away from the regular season is overstated
It's tempting to see this season as the latest evolution of a trend toward the regular season being less meaningful. Several of the biggest discrepancies between seeding and odds have indeed come in the past five years. Still, the larger pattern isn't so clear. Six of the last eight champions have been No. 1 seeds in their respective conferences.
More generally, I think there's so much talk about the ways in which the postseason differs from the regular season -- stars playing more minutes, teams having more time to prepare a customized game plan to attack opponents' weaknesses -- that it's easy to forget about the obvious ways in which the game remains the same. The rules don't change during the playoffs (though their application sometimes does), and rosters generally remain the same. As coach Norman Dale would point out, the baskets are still 10 feet tall.
Recently on Twitter, I tried to figure out how common people think playoff upsets are.
A plurality of respondents correctly identified that the overall winning percentage for teams with home-court advantage has been between 75% and 90% over the last five playoffs played in NBA arenas, but nearly half of voters thought that the higher seed wins less than 75% of the time. In truth, it's 81% over that span.
Respondents underestimated the advantage for higher seeds even more after the mismatch-prone first round, with a plurality thinking they win between 60% and 70% of the time and a comfortable majority pegging their winning percentage below 70%. Over the last five non-bubble postseasons, teams with home court have actually won 74% of those series.
If both the Jazz and the Suns get upset before the conference finals, it would mark a break from NBA history. There have been just three conference finals since the playoffs expanded to 16 teams featuring neither top-two seed: the 2007 West (San Antonio vs. Utah), 2011 West (Dallas vs. Oklahoma City) and last year's East (Boston vs. Miami).
However, it's worth asking whether history holds during this unusual season. Since we're stating the obvious, there are two reasons why teams with home-court advantage typically win: The better team usually has the best record, and it benefits immensely from playing a possible deciding Game 7 at home. Neither of those advantages fully applies this year.
These fun-house-mirror standings
Part of the reason this year's West standings are so disconnected from playoff odds is how little they reflect expectations. Preseason over/under totals had less predictive power this season than in any of the previous 15 years for which I have them. That's especially true in the cases of the Jazz (whose over/under total ranked fifth in the West) and Suns (seventh). Utah beat its total by 11 wins and Phoenix by 13, surpassed only in terms of exceeding expectations by the New York Knicks (18.5 wins better).
Teams that dramatically beat their preseason over/under totals have been somewhat more vulnerable to playoff upsets. Of the 26 since 2006 with a winning percentage at least .150 better than their over/under like the Jazz and Suns, eight have lost a playoff series with home-court advantage.
Meanwhile, the flip side of this is true as well. Of the 25 teams like the Lakers that finished with a winning percentage between .050 and .100 worse than their over/under total but still made the playoffs, 10 won at least one series without home-court advantage.
That preseason over/under totals still have predictive power in the playoffs shouldn't be surprising, given the role injuries (and absences due to the NBA's health and safety protocols this season) play in causing teams to outperform or underperform expectations.
Per my analysis, Phoenix lost the fewest wins above replacement player (3.3 WARP) due to player absences for injury, rest or the health and safety protocols. The team's four consistent starters (Deandre Ayton, Devin Booker, Mikal Bridges and Chris Paul) missed just 10 games combined -- half of those in the season's final week.
Utah enjoyed strong health as well, with its players' 140 games missed also ranking in the NBA's bottom five. (The Jazz's WARP lost, 5.8, was closer to the middle of the pack because All-Stars Mike Conley Jr. and Donovan Mitchell made up 39 of those 140 games.) By contrast, the Lakers were hit hard by injuries to stars Anthony Davis and LeBron James, losing 11.2 WARP -- a total surpassed only by the Brooklyn Nets, whose trio of stars were constantly in and out of the lineup.
If the Lakers are close to full health, there's plenty of reason to believe they're the most talented team in the West. The question then becomes: How much will they be hurt by playing on the road in front of limited fans?
What advantage is home-court advantage?
Unlike the 2020 bubble playoffs, when all games were played on neutral courts, teams will get to play at home this season -- but not in front of full playoff crowds. Surprisingly, the value of home-court advantage didn't fluctuate much over the course of the schedule as increasing numbers of fans were allowed back in arenas.
At the start of the season, observers were wondering whether there would be any home-court advantage with few fans. That flipped in January, as the sample size increased despite attendance still being modest (the average includes games without fans as having zero attendance). By March, teams with fans were starting to see an edge over those without them, but that disappeared in April before home-court advantage rebounded somewhat in May, with 29 of the league's 30 teams welcoming some crowds.
Based on that, I'm not sure what to think about the value of home court in the playoffs, which is typically greater than during the regular season -- particularly in a winner-take-all Game 7. It's interesting to note that Phoenix and Utah were the two teams with the highest attendance during the regular season. The Suns welcomed more than 8,000 fans for their last two games and plan on 11,000 capacity for the playoffs, while the Jazz got up to 6,500 fans in May and will double that in the postseason.
Predictably, Utah (plus-3.4 PPG after adjusting for opponents) and Phoenix (plus-3.2 PPG) were among the top four teams in home-court advantage during the regular season. The Lakers, who were among the last teams to receive approval for fans to return, were a more average plus-0.8 PPG better at home, posting an identical 21-15 record on the road.
Drawing a distinction between the Jazz and Suns
So far, we've discussed Phoenix and Utah together, but I don't think their playoff cases are equally strong. The Jazz had the far better point differential (plus-8.2 PPG, tops in the NBA, while the Suns' plus-5.8 PPG ranked behind the Clippers in the West). Utah boasts far more playoff experience than a Phoenix team with three starters making their postseason debuts in Booker, Ayton and Bridges.
The narrative that Utah has underachieved in the playoffs doesn't match up to reality. Sure, the Jazz went out more meekly than expected against the Rockets in 2018 and 2019, but they've never lost a series with home-court advantage under head coach Quin Snyder. In fact, they've never had home-court advantage in any series in that span, managing to pull off two upsets to advance. That stat should illustrate how much more dominant this Utah team was than its predecessors.
Crucially, the Jazz also don't have to deal with as brutal a draw as the Suns, who will face the Lakers in the first round. I'm inclined to pick the Lakers -- who despite being the 7-seed are tied for the eighth-best record in the league -- to win that series. After all, the usual rules have never applied to LeBron. Of the 14 series won by the team without home-court advantage between 2015 and 2019, five were by James' Cavaliers teams. No other team won more than two series as a lower seed in that span.
In an unpredictable season, Phoenix and Utah will have to beat the odds again to reach the NBA Finals.
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