Playoffs open thread
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Since we had a couple of requests for a sports open thread, here you go. The beginnings of both series have been good, with Game 1 of the NBA finals ending on a de facto buzzer-beater:
Whether this is just the prelude to a gentleman’s sweep of an indication that the series is closer than it appears on paper, you will have to tell me. As a Seattleite, I’m certainly hoping it’s the latter.
The NHL finals, OTOH, are basically even on paper (the models slightly favor Florida, but because they ding the Oilers for Hyman being out but not the Panthers for Tkachuk and Reinhart being heavily compromised, I think it’s even more of a coin flip than 55/45, and betting markets slightly favored Edmonton.) And the first two games went to overtime:
Like last year, I have a healthy financial investment in Oilers Stanley Cup futures because the market over-reacted to some of their regular season chaos again. And despite Florida reclaiming home ice advantage I expect to be financially rewarded rather than emotionally rewarded in the end because there’s already no precedent for two players of this caliber (backed up by perhaps the most underrated player in the league in Bouchard — I still can’t believe he didn’t make the Four Nations team because of some dumb YouTube critics in the Edmonton media) being held off from a championship even this long:
For casuals who are wondering, that’s another former #1 overall pick McDavid did that to. There’s just no defense for that.
Whether the Panthers repeat or not, though, let us conclude with due praise for Bill Zito. He got not only Marchand but Seth Jones for a very affordable price at the deadline, while the Leafs paid a similar price to get some replacement-level cardio. Yes, yes, the tax situation in Florida is favorable and most players love it there (for reasons permanently beyond my understanding), but that didn’t stop them being terrible for 20 years — this is a really well-run organization. And yet they will get all they can handle from a quite poorly-run organization that won several draft lotteries and then The Lottery in a year they were absolutely trying to compete (and two teams had torn themselves down completely to the studs and have never recovered). That’s sports for you!