With a special NBA’s All-Star Weekend completed – Steph Curry’s shooting, LeBron James’ joyful return to Cleveland and Akron, Ohio and a collection of the game’s greatest all-time players in a 75th anniversary celebration – the focus turns to the remainder of the season.
The season has been filled with drama on and off the court, surprise teams (we see you Cleveland and Memphis), disappointing teams (we see you Los Angeles Lakers) and what was expected (hello Phoenix and Milwaukee).
Seven weeks of the regular season remain – about 22 games per team – and much will be decided in the intense playoff push.
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We take a look at the top five storylines for the rest of the season:
Who will win the deep Eastern Conference?
The top six teams in the East are separated by 4½ games and the top eight by seven games. Boston and Toronto have made significant progress and moved up the standings.
The top five teams – Miami, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Milwaukee – are separated by 2½ games with Miami and Chicago tied for first.
The Bulls went into the All-Star break with a five-game winning streak and that was without Zach LaVine, who is expected back from an injury (left knee soreness) when their season resumes later this week.
It’s going to be a fantastic race to the No. 1 seed in the East. But even that doesn’t guarantee much beyond homecourt advantage. Let’s say the Heat get the top seed, they could get Brooklyn, in eighth place today, in the first round.
Whoever wins the East title will go through a meat-grinder to get there.
LeBron James and the struggling Lakers
LeBron James is frustrated with the state of the Los Angeles Lakers, and he made that clear during All-Star Weekend. The Lakers were silent at the trade deadline and enter the final seven weeks of the season with a flawed roster. To make matters worse, Lakers big man Anthony Davis is injured and out for at least four weeks.
That puts even more weight on James to dig the Lakers out of ninth place in the Western Conference. They’re not only in the play-in game right now, but as the ninth-place team, they need to win twice in the play-in format just to make the playoffs. They are six games behind sixth-place Denver, and have the third toughest remaining schedule, according to tankathon.com.
James has been fantastic – another All-NBA season in the making – and it will take a fantastic effort for him to get the Lakers into the playoffs.
“At the trade deadline, the energy shifted in our locker room and I love the way we’ve played the last couple of games,” he said. “One resulted in a win. One resulted in a loss in the Bay. But I hope we can continue that same energy, that same connectivity, and as a leader of the team, obviously, it starts and ends with me, and we go from there.”
The fabulous MVP race
This might be the deepest and most entertaining MVP race the NBA has witnessed in several seasons.
A strong case can be made for several players: Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid, Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, Denver’s Nikola Jokic, Chicago’s DeMar DeRozan, Golden State’s Steph Curry, Memphis’ Ja Morant and Phoenix’s Chris Paul.
In a recent ESPN straw poll that included input from several potential MVP voters, Embiid held a close lead over Jokic and Antetokounmpo.
I had always said Jokic is competing against himself to some degree and needs a better season than he had last year to win for the second consecutive season. Well, he might just be having a better season.
So much of the MVP race depends on how each player’s team finishes the season. If the Sixers win the East, Embiid probably wins it. Same theory goes for Antetokounmpo, a two-time MVP. If Chicago stays atop the East and DeRozan continues his scoring spree, he could win it. Golden State’s Draymond Green said DeRozan is the MVP so far. Paul’s injury, which could sideline him for the rest of the regular season, hurts his chances. And if Golden State somehow takes overtakes Phoenix for the top seed in the West, Curry, who had a strong start to the season, could vault to the top.
Is the West Phoenix’s to lose?
Phoenix has been atop the West standings most of the season. The Suns own the league’s best record at 48-10 and lead the second-place Warriors by 6½ games. Ask Golden State’s Draymond Green, and he says it isn’t wide open. He says the Warriors are the favorites. Of course, that’s just Green’s typical bravado.
But with Chris Paul’s injury, the Suns hit their first bit of significant adversity just as the Warriors are getting healthier. How will they respond?
“We have to figure it out,” Suns guard Devin Booker said. “Everybody has to give a little bit more. I look at the beauty in it. He gets to rest his legs. He gets to get ready for a long postseason that we’re trying to make happen. So we got to hold it down without him. We got to hold the fort down. I’m sure Coach (Monty Williams) is already coming up with some game plans and schemes to make it work without him out there.”
And while eight games out of first-place, Memphis and Ja Morant will put pressure on the Suns and Warriors. Denver is way behind in the standings (15 games back) but it is expected to get Jamal Murray back, and that could make the Nuggets a dangerous team not only in the final weeks of the regular season but the playoffs, too.
All eyes on Brooklyn-Philadelphia trade
As a sidebar to whom will win the East, much attention will be on Brooklyn and Philadelphia and the impact of their trade deadline deal that had Ben Simmons, Seth Curry and Andre Drummond going to Brooklyn and James Harden to Philadelphia.
It was a trade out of necessity. Harden wanted out of Brooklyn, Simmons wanted out of Philadelphia, but there’s not much time to make it work and both teams still have issues.
For the Nets, Kevin Durant is still out with an injury, unvaccinated Kyrie Irving can’t play in home games because of New York City’s vaccine ordinance and Ben Simmons hasn’t played in a game this season. Plus, the Nets have dropped in the standings, falling to eighth and a play-in game spot. If the Nets don’t figure this out to a degree, it will be another disappointing season amid a ton of hype and promise.
The Sixers need Harden to embrace this opportunity even as Embiid puts together an MVP season. They lost depth in the trade and a player who was a three-time All-Star by the age of 25. The Sixers and president of basketball operations Daryl Morey went all in on this trade. They need it to work.
Who won this trade? The short-term winner won’t be determined until the playoffs are over.
Follow Jeff Zillgitt on Twitter @JeffZillgitt.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NBA playoff push: Can LeBron James get Lakers in? Who wins East?
