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NBA Offseason 2015: Managing Our Expectations

By Paolo Santamaria

May 13, 2015; Atlanta, GA, USA; Washington Wizards guard John Wall (2) shown on the bench against the Atlanta Hawks during the first half in game five of the second round of the NBA Playoffs at Philips Arena. The Hawks defeated the Wizards 82-81. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
May 13, 2015; Atlanta, GA, USA; Washington Wizards guard John Wall (2) shown on the bench against the Atlanta Hawks during the first half in game five of the second round of the NBA Playoffs at Philips Arena. The Hawks defeated the Wizards 82-81. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports /
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“Okay, you were right.”

“Right about what?” I asked my friend after we’d just seen my Washington Wizards take down his Boston Celtics, 133-132, in a double overtime thriller this past season.

“John Wall, man. He really is one of the best point guards in the league,” he responded. I thanked him and tried my best to hide the “I told you so” smirk, as Wall was coming off a career-high 17 assists along with 26 points and the game winning drive:

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Let’s be honest, we all do it as sports fans; when I told him at the start of the season that John Wall would prove to be one of the top five point guards in the NBA in the 2014-2015 campaign, he looked at me like I was crazy. Being the indignant homer that I am, I returned the favor.

Thankfully, I ended up being right and took the opportunity to gloat about it while I could. And if we’re being honest, we all do it. It just comes with the territory.

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Thankfully, the Wiz then went on to prove me right even more so, finishing a great December with a blowout win against the Celtics. Our team was soaring, and I honestly thought we could challenge for the East title with the Cleveland Cavaliers looking like a hot mess.

We were even neck and neck with a healthy Oklahoma City Thunder a couple months later, in a game where both Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant went off for 30+ points each, a game the same friend and I attended. But in typical sports fashion, my expectations were turned on their head when Westbrook did this:

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And so it went. The Wizards finished the season as the fifth seed, swept the Toronto Raptors and fought a closely contested series with the Atlanta Hawks before losing in six.

On the other hand, my friend’s Celtics traded away seemingly half their team in Rajon Rondo and Jeff Green, flipped a player they received in trades (Brandan Wright) for their current best player (Isiah Thomas) and somehow finished their season 20-12, surging into the playoffs before getting swept by the LeBron James-led Cavs.

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You just can’t predict this kind of stuff. It’s why the regular season is 82 games and five and a half months long. It’s also why we can’t get ahead of ourselves when making offseason predictions.

I know, I know — it’s too fun to wonder whether or not the Houston Rockets will have an elite backcourt with the addition of Ty Lawson or if the Wizards added enough pieces to make up for the loss of Paul Pierce. Nearly four months without basketball, heck, the entire NBA offseason, can be boredom inducing to say the least.

But part of the excitement of the next season is looking forward to seeing all the pieces your team acquired actually play.

And it’s not so much the thought of your team being better that’s exciting; it’s the thought that your team could be better. And they could also be much worse or even stay the same, and unfortunately for 29 teams, that’s second place at best.

Managing our expectations is hard as fans. The homer in us want to hype up the best traits of all our players, like looking at Lance Stephenson‘s 2013-14 season instead of last year’s, breaking down all of Rondo’s game tape from last season and picking out only the good plays, and of course, watching endless Carmelo Anthony highlight reels, Anthony Davis workout videos and Derrick Rose banked-in buzzer beaters.

It’s the nature of the game. We write down our team’s starting lineup, our possible rotations and for some of us, even minute allocations and projected stats, right down to the decimal point. And then we share these with other fans, making sure they know just how good our team could be.

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    • Truthfully, we really don’t know anything until the season starts. But the ideas we have are better than nothing. We gamble with our own emotions, betting that our teams will pull a proverbial rabbit out of their hats, or just play up to their potential for once, all against the odds that they don’t.

    It even sounds simple just writing this. But it isn’t.

    Sixteen teams make the playoffs, four make the conference finals, two make the NBA Finals and only one goes home a champion. By that logic, we should all give up and stop speculating. And yet we don’t, even though, deep down, most of us know our teams don’t have a real shot.

    Because it isn’t about what’s realistic. If sports and the NBA were like that, we’d all lose interest as soon as most of us saw our rosters and projected starting lineups. As much as we love to throw out analysis, numbers and moonlight as armchair and barstool GMs, we’re still invested emotionally more than anything.

    Maybe it’s sports, maybe it’s just life, or maybe we’re all just obsessed with gambling away our emotions. But if rooting for something that likely won’t happen, year in and year out, is considered gambling, then I’ve never been happier to admit that I am absolutely, and unequivocally, addicted.

    Next: Golden State Warriors: Grading The Offseason

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