There is a rich history of little-known players having the best outings of their lives in the 82nd game of the season because their teams have nothing to play for. This year, undrafted rookie Kenneth Lofton, Jr. scored 42 points, topping his previous career-high of 11, while Payton Pritchard, Tre Mann and Theo Pinson all notched out-of-nowhere triple doubles.
But this year, there were also games with playoff implications, since the middle of the Western Conference was still in flux. Although the Denver Nuggets and Memphis Grizzlies settled into the top two seeds around New Year’s and stayed put, the No. 5 through No. 13 seeds were separated by only three games in the standings exactly one month before the end of the season.
In the final game of the season, the Minnesota Timberwolves and New Orleans Pelicans played a contest in which Minnesota could have improved to the No. 7 seed with a win and New Orleans could have risen as high as No. 5, with the loser dropping down to No. 9. The Los Angeles Clippers were forced to learn game theory on the fly, as a win against the Phoenix Suns guaranteed them a playoff berth, but a loss plus a particular set of outcomes in other games also secured them a postseason spot and an arguably easier first round opponent (or sent them to the play-in tournament with a different set of outcomes).
This season featured unusual parity across both conferences. Fourteen teams finished the season within five games of .500, which was significantly higher than 21st century average of 8.87 and broke the previous record of 13 from the COVID-impacted 2020-21 season.
The existence of the play-in tournament added to the stakes, creating three cut-offs where there used to be one. Instead of a single hard line between the eighth and ninth seeds for playoff eligibility, there is now incentive to get the No. 6 seed over the No. 7 seed (to avoid the play-in), the No. 8 seed over the No. 9 seed (to avoid needing to win two play-in games to advance) and the No. 10 seed over the No. 11 seed (to avoid missing the play-in entirely).
The drama of the West, however, was not matched by the Eastern Conference; none of the East’s top eight seeds dropped out of the top eight after late January, and teams often remained in their exact positions for weeks at a time.
The league has been questioned repeatedly about the length of its 82-game calendar, with critics arguing that regular season games don’t carry enough weight. While the steadiness of the Eastern conference supports the argument for shortening the schedule, the movement of the Western conference provides a counter-example.
The new collective bargaining agreement, which begins with the 2023-24 season, will encourage players to play at least 65 games in order to be eligible for awards and introduce a mid-season tournament to add intrigue. But the magic number of 82 is here to stay, and thanks in part to the play-in tournament, it still produces late-season fun.
