Mavs wait out Clippers, Nuggets, for 2020-21 Super League title

The final day of the pro basketball season arrived with a three-way tie on top of the Super League. The tie was broken on the final day in quite a surprising way.

The Super League race across pro basketball in 2020-21 proved to be the most exciting in history, which is saying nothing because this is only the second time we're run it. Terrific race, though, by any standard.

When May began, the Boston Celtics held the upper hand at 12-4, but their lead was tenuous, just one-half game ahead of the Clippers (14-7) and the Denver Nuggets (13-6) and one game ahead of the Dallas Mavericks (14-8).

When the season ended barely more than two weeks later, the entire top four had been turned upside-down, and that's because when it was time to win the championship, three of the top four couldn't hang with three of the bottom four.

First, the Celtics collapsed. Losing to the Portland Trail Blazers, 129-119, at home on May 2 was a set-back, but losing a back-to-back at home against the Miami Heat on May 9 and 11 was a back-breaker. Like that, the Celtics went from the top to all the way out of it at 12-7 and their Super League season was done.

The Mavericks had only one game left and handled it, thrashing the Heat 127-113 in Miami on May 4. The Mavs were in the clubhouse at 15-8.

The Nuggets momentarily moved into a first-play with the Celtics by beating the Clippers, 110-104, at Staples Center on May 1, but fell right back with a 93-89 loss to the Lakers two nights later in the same venue. Three nights after that, the Clippers bounced back with a 118-94 win against the Lakers at Staples Center.

When we came to May 16, the final day of the season, we had a three-way tie for first place between the Mavs (15-8), Denver (14-7) and the Clippers (15-8). But the Nuggets and Clippers each had a chance to win it on the final day of the season. Oklahoma City, a miserable 3-17 in the Super League, was to visit the Clippers on Pico Boulevard. The Nuggets were visiting Portland, another second-division team in the Super League.

If the Clippers and Nuggets both won, they would finish tied on top in the games column (though Denver would barely prevail by percentage). The tiebreaker belonged to Denver, winning two-of-three during the year from the Clippers, so Denver would have won the title. However, if Denver lost and the Clippers won, then the Clippers would have won the title.

As the standings reveal, neither of those things happened. The Nuggets got drenched, 132-116 in Portland (In the NBA standings, the Blazers desperately needed the win for a playoff berth). The Clippers, already secure in the playoffs, fell to the Thunder, 117-112. Overall, it was only OKC's second win since March 31; they were 2-23 after that.

So, the Mavericks prevailed, clinching a berth in the 2021-22 Super League, though they also have qualified on a couple of other ways. And the moral of the story is that we see winners and losers when we look at standings, but in this league, don't you believe it. We're two years down in the basketball Super League and it has proved interesting.

The next Super League will have the Clippers, Nuggets, Mavericks and Milwaukee Bucks from the top half of this year's First Division. The top three teams from the Second Division going in will be the Philadelphia 76ers, the Utah Jazz and the Miami Heat. Entering from the Third Division will be the Lakers and the Brooklyn Nets. The Fourth Division champion New York Knicks also qualified, as did the Memphis Grizzlies for winning the intercontinental lineal championship.

One thing we can't say about the basketball Super League is that it's static. When we open the new season for 2021-22 with the third running of the Super League, the only teams participating for the third year will be Denver and Milwaukee. 

Three other teams (Boston, Oklahoma City and Portland) participated in the first two Super Leagues and will miss the third. Ten other teams have been in one of the two Super Leagues, and four other teams will participate for the first time next season. Another 11 teams will be fighting through the pyramid for their first Super League berths next year.

Nuggets nudge Clippers for 2020-21 First Division pro hoop title

Former Clippers guard Austin Rivers played an interesting role in the game that clinched the First Division pro basketball championship for the Denver Nuggets. Down the pyramid, the Lakers won the Third Division, their second straight pyramid title.

The First Division championship in pro basketball for 2020-21 was to be decided when the Denver Nuggets went to the Staples Center on May 1. Supplying the local opposition were the Clippers, who fiercely debated the evening's visitors for the top division title.

The Nuggets entered the game 13-5, while the Clippers were 12-5. The Clippers had two games left in the First Division after this, and a win here would put the tiebreaker situation in their favor, while a Denver win would clinch it for the Nuggets. The Clippers and Nuggets had split their first two games, and this one would decide it. If the Nuggets won, then the Clippers could win their last two to force a tie at 14-6, but the Nuggets would hold the tiebreaker. 

In a bit of a cruel twist for the Clippers, the man of the night, in a puzzling sense, was their old shooting guard, now wearing the clothes of a beggar, Austin Rivers. 

Rivers, it's well known, is the son of Doc Rivers, and he was the kid everyone had to have coming out of high school in Winter Park, FL, in 2011, just 10 years ago. He selected Duke, where he hit a big three-pointer to beat North Carolina. A year later, he entered the NBA draft, taken by the New Orleans Pelicans with the No. 10 overall selection (The top pick that year, Anthony Davis of Kentucky, also went to New Orleans.).

Little injuries have followed Rivers around since then. A career shooting percentage of .418 that doesn't hang with NBA shooting guards has made him mostly a second-string player. Three years after drafting Rivers, the Pelicans packed him off to the Boston Celtics in a three-team deal. Three days later, Rivers went to the Clippers in another three-team deal. 

Now playing for his father, Rivers began to receive serious playing time, getting up over 33 minutes per game in 2017-18. But his weak shooting continued, and so did the persistent injuries. He averaged 15.1 points per game to go with averages of four assists and 2.4 rebounds. 

Not terrific numbers, but, at this point, the Clippers had a 25-year-old player who might be figuring it out and he was, after all, the son of the head coach. So, they traded him, straight up, to Washington for Marcin Gortat, who was 10 years older and proved to have so little value that the Clippers released him before the end of the next season.

And long before the Clippers released Gortat, the Wizards traded Rivers to the Phoenix Suns, who immediately waived him. 

Rivers caught on with the Houston Rockets, where he also caught on to the local penchant for three-point shooting and reached a new career-high scoring average of 17.3 in 2019-20. Now that Rivers had a little value again, he was again traded, this time along with three other guys to the New York Knickerbockers for Issuf Sanon, a Ukrainian guard who was drafted in 2018 by the Washington Wizards and has since then been traded twice for a total of three draft picks and four players without ever signing an NBA contract. This was last November, a month before the 2020-21 season began.

Before the end of March, the Knicks packed up Rivers in the third three-team deal of what has become a journeyman career. This one involved seven players and four draft picks, moving Rivers to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Three days later, the Thunder waived him. 

Three weeks later, on April 20, Rivers signed a 10-day contract with the Nuggets. On March 30, he signed a contract for the rest of the season. Two days later, on May 1, the Nuggets were in Staples Center to play the Clippers with the First Division championship on the line.

The box score for that night shows that Rivers played for 26 minutes. He took seven shots, three of them from three-point range, and he made one of them, a three-pointer. Otherwise, two defensive rebounds, four assists, a steal, a personal foul, three points.

He made two appearances, the first being the most important. Rivers entered the game with 6:12 remaining in the first quarter and the Clippers leading, 18-7. When Rivers returned to the bench with 5:39 left in the second quarter, the Nuggets were ahead, 44-36. That's a 37-19 run for the Nuggets in 11:51. The points were scored by Michael Porter, Jr. (10), JaMychal Green (nine) and Paul Millsaps (eight). 

Rivers during that 11:51 kicked in two missed shots (one was a three), two defensive rebounds, two assists, a steal and a shooting foul. No points. But at the end of the night, his plus-minus was plus-22, by far the best of any player in the game. This seems to tell us absolutely nothing. But it also makes us wonder what Rivers must have done to be plus-22 with so little in his box score line. 

Surely, he wasn't an innocent bystander. He played another 14 minutes, these without any change in the score margin. Strange things can happen during that period in the NBA game when the subs come in, but when a sub comes in for 12 minutes and your team swings the game 19 points in its favor, he must have something to do with it.

Anyway, the Nuggets won, 110-104, capturing the First Division. The Clippers dropped their final two games at the end of the season and formally finished two games back.

These were the First Division standings after games of March 3:

        W     L     GB Ppct.

Milwaukee 5     2     –         .533

San Antonio 6     3     –         .532

Denver 7     4     –         .531

CLIPPERS 4     3     1         .5111

Dallas 5     4     1         .5106

Houston         4     6     2         .479

Portland         3     6     3         .468

Oklahoma City 4     10    4½ .434

Obviously, quite a lot changed during the second half of the season. The Nuggets won seven of their next eight games to clinch on May 1. The Clippers were always a step behind the Nuggets and stayed there, but they did move ahead of Milwaukee, which couldn't break even in the second half, and San Antonio, which lost nine of its last 11 First Division games.

Of course, the Bucks won the NBA championship, so it's not like their season was a total loss. And the Mavericks, who finished in the top half of the First Division, won the Super League. But neither was much in the hunt for the First Division title by the middle of April.

The Rockets didn't collapse quite as badly as San Antonio, at least not in the First Division. Overall, the Rockets lost 45 of their last 51 games, so losing only seven of ten in the top tier isn't so bad. But it still landed them in last place at the end, as they didn't start their skid in a first-place tie like the Spurs. 

The two teams on the bottom of the March 3 standings, the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Portland Trail Blazers, each finished gloriously to avoid relegation. The Thunder won four of their last six, starting with a March 4 win against San Antonio that secured the tiebreaker against the Spurs, and ending with a win against the Clippers on the last day of the season to force that tie and beat the Spurs in a relegation decision. 

The Trail Blazers, apparently doomed on May 7, had one foot in the Second Division with a 6-11 record at the top level. But the Blazers beat the Spurs on May 8, securing all the tiebreakers with the Spurs and Thunder. On May 10, they defeated the Rockets, clinching at least that tie and condemning the Rockets to relegation. They didn't even need to beat the new champions, the Nuggets, on the final day of the season to avoid relegation, but they did, anyway, and it did make a huge difference in the Super League.

So, the Spurs and Rockets are going down to the Second Division. There was never much doubt which two teams would be coming up from the Second Division to play in the top level next season. The Philadelphia 76ers had the best regular season record across the NBA in the Eastern Conference, and the Utah Jazz were that team in the Western Conference. They finished, in that order, on top of the Second Division.

The remainder of the division was a wild scramble simultaneously to snag the one remaining Super League berth in the Second Division and to avoid relegation to the Third Division. 

Going to May 1, the division separated to a clear top half and a bottom half. On top, there was Philadelphia (11-3), Utah (10-5), New Orleans (8-5) and Boston (8-7). On the bottom half were Miami (6-8), Golden State (4-7), Indiana (6-10) and Toronto (4-12). The Raptors already were guaranteed relegation and the other three were in danger.

Miami rallied with wins in its remaining three games, including a back-to-back with the Celtics, to finish 9-8 and snag third place to land in next year's Super League. Indiana also won its last two. However because Golden State won three of its remaining four, the Pacers were stuck in the relegation zone.

The Pacers and Heat were the two teams promoted this year to the Second Division, and the difference for each between a Super League bid and relegation back to the Third Division was razor thin. The Pacers won two out of three against the Heat, so it's a bit to ask for them to sweep three, but that would have spared them relegation and put them in the Super League. 

The Pacers would have been 9-9, tied with New Orleans, and they held that tiebreaker, barely (two-game split, one-point differential for Indiana). The Heat would have been 8-9, with Golden State at 7-8. Miami would have beaten out Golden State, .49090 to .49056. We round to the ten-thousandths of a percentage point and if it comes up the same, we consider it a tie. Here, it goes to the Heat, .4909 to .4906, and Golden State would have been relegated.

The Third Division wasn't nearly so interesting or complicated. The Lakers and the Brooklyn Nets finished on top, in that order, the same order by which they had been  promoted from the Fourth Division. Both will go to the Second Division and the Elite League in 2021-22. The Lakers finished a game ahead of the Nets, who finished two games in front of the Atlanta Hawks and the Charlotte Hornets, who finished tied for third.

The bottom of the Third Division finds the Minnesota Timberwolves lonely and in last place. The Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers finished tied for sixth, which is a harmless place to be, but that means they also tied for seventh, which is the relegation zone. The head-to-head tiebreaker is clear: Orlando won all three meetings, leading by 19, 21 and 22 points entering the fourth quarters of those games. Cleveland is going down.

The two teams moving up from the Fourth Division are the champion New York Knicks (10-3) and the runner-up Phoenix Suns (8-3), who actually won their two meetings with the Knicks. The Suns' poison pill was an 0-3 start in the division with losses to Detroit, Washington and Memphis. 

The Suns appeared headed to another dismal Fourth Division output, but they won their remaining eight games, including their final two against the Knicks, and took second place ahead of Memphis, which bolted to a 4-1 start. Entering April 26, the Suns and Grizzlies were tied for second at 6-3, but the Suns went on to beat the Knicks twice, while Memphis lost to the Knicks and Detroit.

Clippers win top, Lakers win bottom in 2019-20 pro hoop pyramid

The storied Lakers became the last of the original Fourth Division teams to escape in 2019-20, easily winning the bottom tier. By an even greater margin, the Clippers won the First Division. In the very end, of course, the Lakers won the NBA championship.

Pro basketball resumed after the pandemic in 2020 with arrangements that worked well enough for the pyramids, under the circumstances.

It turns out that the teams lopped off of the resumption for their weakness in the NBA standings also were, by and large, the weakest teams in the pyramid. They were not  missed.

Thus, in the Fourth Division, we already knew when play resumed in July after the March shutdown that the Lakers had it won, and they became, finally, the last team from the original Fourth Division in 2015-16 to rise from the basement.

The divisions were set for that first year by simply taking the four best records in each conference from the year before and putting them in the First Division, then putting the next four of each conference into the Second Division, etc. Left with only six teams for the Fourth Division, those teams were the Lakers, the Orlando Magic, the New York Knicks, the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Philadelphia 76ers and Sacramento Kings.

None of these teams has taken over the NBA in the last five years. The best in the pyramid is the 76ers, who rose to the Second Division and the Elite Division in 2019-20 after two seasons of improvement. The Timberwolves finally rose to the Third Division and the Elite Division in 2019-20, with disappointing results. The Magic has never made it past the Third Division and is back at the bottom this year, but will be promoted with the Lakers in 2020-21. The Kings have risen to the Third Division and are fighting to stay there. The Knicks have moved up to the Third Division and now they are back on the bottom level.

So, the Lakers finally are getting out, and they're also going to the Elite Division in 2020-21 as this year's Fourth Division champ. And that's all there really is to say about the bottom tier, because there were no games on the resumption schedule, which leaves out the Knicks and Detroit Pistons completely.

There was little more to be decided in the Second and Third divisions, but the First Division was loaded. Though the Clippers won the championship with 4½ games to spare over the Denver Nuggets, a frantic race simultaneously reach the Super League and avoid relegation involved five teams. 

The winners in that scrum were the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Portland Trail Blazers, who finished third and fourth, respectively, in the First Division and qualified for the Super League. The Houston Rockets and San Antonio Supers finished in intermediate positions, fifth and sixth in the First Division, respectively, meaning they get to remain in the First Division for 2020-21, but will not go to the Super League. The losers were the Toronto Raptors, who finished seventh and are being relegated, along with the Golden State Warriors.

Only two games remained in the Second Division when the season resumed in the bubble, and the Dallas Mavericks won both, defeating the Milwaukee Bucks and the Utah Jazz. With that, the Mavs rallied to a second-place finish in the Second Division, one-half game behind the Bucks, thus securing a First Division promotion and a Super League berth. 

The Jazz fell to fourth and out of the money. The Boston Celtics finished third, which is good enough to join the Super League, but not the First Division. The obvious relegants from the Second Division were the Atlanta Hawks and the Cleveland Cavaliers, neither of which received even an invitation to the bubble.

In the Third Division, the Indiana Pacers and Miami Heat went to the bubble all but certain as the two teams that would be promoted and sent to the Super League, but slight question remained about who would win the division. It turned out to be the Pacers, by 2½ games.

On the bottom of the Third Division, and headed to the Fourth Division for 2020-21, were the Washington Wizards and Chicago Bulls.

Clippers, Nuggets, sharing control of pro basketball First Division

The top level of professional basketball is shaping up as a race between the Clippers and the Denver Nuggets, who have shot to the top of the First Division.

Clippers coach Doc Rivers has his squad solidly in the hunt for the First Division championship (shaka/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike Italy license).

The race to the top of the First Division in pro basketball is shaping up as a two-team affair. The Denver Nuggets have the best record in the division at 9-2, but the 11-5 Clippers are almost right there.

That kind of finish calls for a split championship, but even if they don't split it, they are the only serious contenders right now for the First Division championship. The more interesting mix is down the standings. We're pretty sure the Golden State Warriors are going nowhere except for the relegation zone, but every other team is fighting simultaneously to win the championship and stave off relegation, and the top four in this tier will snag berths in the Elite Division for 2020-21.

The Oklahoma City Thunder, the third-place team in the First Division, is really on the fence, at once 2½ games off the championship and 2½ games off relegation. Everyone beneath the Thunder is closer to the gutter than to glory, including the Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs and Portland Trail Blazers. No one is safe.

That's good news for the Toronto Raptors, who are positioned at the moment for relegation with their 3-6 record. As the only Eastern team in the First Division, the Raptors have an unprecedentedly slim schedule here that will total 14 games. Adjusted winning percentage will tell in these decisions, so the few games Toronto plays weigh heavily. The Raptors have five left – two against Golden State, two against Denver and one against Houston. And it is a matter of more than passing interest, maybe, that we should note troubles against this smattering of top Western clubs for the Raptors, who are the defending NBA champions and the team with the second-best record in the Eastern Conference.

Following the new policy for the baseball pyramid and Elite Division, we weight these percentages. Because the NBA season is a smidge more than half as long as the MLB season, we weight the NBA a smidge more than half as much, with 38 games of .500, which means we add 19-19 to each team's record before calculating percentage. The discrepancies in basketball schedules amount to almost nothing compared with the discrepancies in baseball schedule, and yet it does make a difference. For example, it gives a team with a light schedule, like Toronto, a much better chance of escaping relegation.

And it makes a real difference in the Second Division. Coming out of the All-Star break, the Milwaukee Bucks led the Second Division, but they only were 1½ games ahead of the fifth-place team, the Philadelphia 76ers. In between, the scrum includes the Utah Jazz, the Dallas Mavericks and the Boston Celtics. The top two in this group are promoted to the First Division in 2020-21, while the top three will enter the Elite Division.

If we just went by straight percentages, Utah would be the second-place team here and Boston would be fourth. But adding 38 games of .500 brings the percentage column into alignment with the games column, which raised Boston to second and drops Utah to fourth. 

At the bottom of the Second Division, three teams are trying to not be the two that will be assigned next year to the Third Division. The inside track for escaping relegation belongs to the New Orleans Pelicans, who are 3-9. The Pelicans still are two games better than the Cleveland Cavaliers (2-12) and the Atlanta Hawks (1-11).

The two best teams in the Third Division clearly are the Indiana Pacers and the Miami Heat. Both are going up to the Second Division and the Elite Division next year, barring disaster.

The rest of this group is just trying to grunt out this schedule and outrun the relegation carriage. The third-place team, the 9-9 Charlotte Hornets, is only one game ahead of the seventh-place Sacramento Kings, who are positioned for relegation at 5-7. In between them are the Brooklyn Nets and the Minnesota Timberwolves. One of these teams will be relegated, along with the Chicago Bulls, who have made a substantial down payment on next year's Fourth Division rent with a 5-12 record.

This is the fifth year for the pyramid across pro basketball. The Lakers began this history in the Fourth Division in 2015-16 and they've not only never gotten out, but they've been a poor Fourth Division club, 23-36 in four years of Fourth Division games entering 2019-20.

Hard to believe, but we have been living through the absolute lowest point in the history of the Lakers going all the way back to Minneapolis, 1948. From the end of 2012-13 through the 2018-19 season, the Lakers went six consecutive years without going to the playoffs. Among those six seasons were four of the five worst winning percentages in team history. 

In the entire previous 65 years of the franchise's history, the Lakers had missed the playoffs a total of five times. Only once had they gone more than one year without entering the playoffs.

There is a cure for this in the NBA, and the Lakers usually have access to it. Just sign the best player in the league. So, LeBron James finally decided to play for his hometown team and signed with the Lakers.  Now, they've added Anthony Davis and they've got Dwight Howard and Rajon Rondo, older players who used to be stars most of the time and still get there some of the time.

The Lakers are 42-12 overall, best record in the NBA's Western Conference. Only four teams in Lakers history have played better than this team's .778 clip, and all of them won the NBA Finals. 

The Lakers also are making easy work of the Fourth Division for once, 9-1. They almost can't fail to win the Fourth Division and the Elite Division berth that goes with it. The second-place team, the Memphis Grizzlies, are 6-4. The Lakers have three games left, so their magic number is one. The Lakers would be last of the original Fourth Division teams from 2015-16 to climb from the cellar.

Memphis and Orlando are close together for the second promotion out of the Fourth Division. No other team has a shot.

Huge Warrior cushion should hold all-time basketball lead

It would appear that the Golden State Warriors NBA dynasty has come to an end. Right through the teeth of that dynasty, though, the Warriors built a huge four-year lead in the men's American professional basketball traveling championship.

Here is Stephen Curry, left, during lofty days for the Golden State Warriors, launching against Marcin Gortat, then with the Washington Wizards (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

The all-time traveling championship standings across American professional basketball invite us to remember that it's not where you start, but where you finish.

Where these standings will finish, of course, no one knows. But we do know how they started. The Golden State Warriors, as the NBA champions for 2014-15, were given the traveling championship provisionally when we began tracking this title in 2015-16. The Warriors promptly made their title considerably more than provisional, winning their first 24 games of the season and making a cushion in the traveling championship that they maintain to this day.

Entering 2019-20, the Warriors hold 54 games of championship, 30 more than any other team. Even if we subtracted all 24 games of that first provisional defense, the Warriors still would lead these standings by a comfortable margin.

The next team on the list, the Miami Heat, has 24 wins. Then, the standings thicken up a bit. With 22 games of title, the Toronto Raptors are third, followed by the Clippers and Portland Trail Blazers, each with 20 wins. The San Antonio Spurs and Houston Rockets each have 18 victories in the four-year history of this championship through the 2018-19 season.

Following are the complete standings across the top level of American (and Canadian) pro basketball from the start of the 2015-16 season, when we began tracking, to the end of the 2018-19 season:

Only one NBA team hadn't yet won the league-wide traveling championship through its first four years. The Phoenix Suns failed in all 10 of their challenges. The Memphis Grizzlies and Minnesota Timberwolves each had one game of championship.

Of 30 teams in the NBA, only nine carried winning records for the traveling championship. Those would be the seven teams already mentioned, plus the next two on the all-time standings. The Boston Celtics are in eighth place with 16 wins, followed by the New Orleans Pelicans with 14.

In four years of running this championship, it went on the line 321 times through 2018-19, with the title changing hands 132 times. The average title lasted 2.43 games.

Starting the 2019-20 season, the Lakers took the early lead with four straight wins in November, but they now have been caught by the Rockets, who won it from the Clippers on November 11 and posted three defenses through Nov. 18.

Raptors rip through hoop traveler, but Warriors still lead all-time.

The Toronto Raptors controlled the pro basketball traveling championship far more than any other team in 2017-18, but the Golden State Warriors still have controlled the title for the most games all-time.

                     

Once upon a time, 2015ish, it was decided that these pages would, from time to time, chronicle a traveling professional basketball championship across the best league in the world. Nothing unusual there – we do that in a lot of sports.

It made sense, starting the title with the 2015-16 season, to give the first defense to the Golden State Warriors, who had just won the NBA championship. It made additional sense when the Warriors assembled an incredible defense, a 24-game winning streak right out of the gate.

And that, alone, even if the Warriors hadn't won another traveling championship game through the 2017-18 season, would still be enough to give them the all-time lead.

As it happened, the Warriors enjoyed another 16-game championship streak later in the 2015-16 season and ended that year with a 40-2 record. That second streak ended on March 6, 2016, when the Lakers beat them, 112-95, at Staples Center.

From that day through the end of the 2017-18 season, The Warriors didn't win another game for the continental traveling championship. But they're still 40-5 historically, easily the best record across pro basketball.

Golden State's silence in the last two seasons says something else about this competition. Contrary to the all-time standings, there is no clearly dominant team here on a year-over-year basis. Only two teams, the Clippers and the Miami Heat, have put together two seasons in which they could win more than a half-dozen games. 

The Heat won seven games during the first season, then came back and won Team of the Year with 15 victories in 2016-17. But this year, they won only one game. That still gives them the second-most wins all-time with 23.

The Clippers lost all five of their bids for the title in 2015-16, but came back in 2016-17 with nine wins and in 2017-18 with seven wins, for 16 overall. That puts them in fourth place all time, behind the 2017-18 Team of the Year, the Toronto Raptors. All 17 wins the Raptors have ever counted for the title came in 2017-18, as the Raptors lost their four bids for the title during its first two seasons.

They figured it out in 2017-18, winning three titles, including a seven-game sprint right up to the All-Star break. The Raptors never again played for the title after that, but no one was catching them.

Heat streak of 12 secures Team of the Year in NBA traveler

The Miami Heat tore through the end of January and the start of February with 12 straight wins for the traveling championship across pro basketball, good enough for Team of the Year honors. But the Clippers put up a strong run at the end.

Goran Dragić was the game-high scorer four times and the high assist man five times during the Miami Heat's 12-game run with the traveling championship across pro basketball (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

The traveling championships aren't intended as a measure of which teams across any league are the best. After all, there is some luck involved in even getting the opportunity to play for it.

For example, it's pretty hard to argue right now against the Golden State Warriors as the best team in pro basketball. The Warriors won 15 of their last 16 regular season games, and now they've won all 13 of their playoff games. That's 28 wins in their last 29 games – absolute gold star dominance during the most important part of the season.

Where the traveling championship of pro basketball this year was concerned, the Warriors were a non-entity. Nothing against them. They just didn't have a lot of chances.

The Warriors played for the continental traveler only once, losing 105-102 on the road against the Miami Heat on January 23.

How would the traveling title have gone differently if Golden State had won that one opportunity? It's hard to say. 

But we do know this: The Heat was hot at the time. The Miami five had already won two straight with the traveling title, and would go on to win nine more in a row after that contest.

With that run of 12 straight wins for the traveling title, the Heat comes out as the overall Team of the Year, finishing the year 15-5 for the championship with three titles and 12 defenses in 15 attempts.

During that run of 12 straight traveling title wins for the Heat, the star was Hassan Whiteside, who was the high rebounder in seven of those games and the high scorer in two. Another stalwart was Goran Dragić, the high scorer in four games and the high assist man in five.

A strong case could be made for the Clippers who finished 9-1 with two titles, including a seven-game streak that ended the regular season. The Clippers will take the title to the start of the 2017-18 campaign.

All-time, the Warriors remain the all-team leader with the traveling title. After their 40-2 performance with the prize in 2015-16, the Warriors now are 40-3 overall. The Warriors have actually only won it once. They were the care-taker champs when this exercise began with the start of the 2015-16 season because they won the NBA title the year previous. Then, the Warriors tore off 24 wins before finally losing the title.

The Heat, though, has a way with this continental title. It now has won the seven times in two years, far more than any other team. The Heat is 22-10 in games for the league-wide traveling championship, making them second in all-time wins. The Heat has successfully defended the title 15 times in 22 attempts during the two-year history of the championship.

Spurs win top tier, Clippers going up

The San Antonio Spurs won the First Division across pro basketball, while last year's champs, the Golden State Warriors, fell to third. The Clippers, who were relegated last year, have fought their way back to the top level by winning the Second Division.

Kawhi Leonard (2) was instrumental in taking the San Antonio Spurs to the First Division championship (Jose Garcia/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license).

By the end of March, the San Antonio Spurs were in the clubhouse with a 13-4 record in the First Division, good enough to clinch the championship and their second consecutive division title.

In 2015-16, the Spurs blitzed through the Second Division with an 18-1 mark to earn promotion. In 2016-17, the Spurs were just about as lightly challenged in the top tier, despite the presence of the Golden State Warriors, who won it a year earlier with the same 18-1 record. This season, the Warriors finished third in the First Division at 11-6, two games from the top.

The Boston Celtics, who were promoted to the First Division with the Spurs this year, are going back to the Second Division after finishing at the bottom of the First Division. They will be joined by the Toronto Raptors.

The Clippers, who were relegated to the Second Division this year, are headed back to the top division in 2017-18 after taking the Second Division championship. Going to the stretch, the Clippers held a 1/2-game lead on the Washington Wizards for the Second Division title. But the Clippers won their last two games, while the Wizards lost their final two, falling out of consideration for promotion. The Oklahoma City Thunder took the second promotion to the top tier with a 12-10 record.

The Portland Trail Blazers, who began as a First Division team in 2015-16, are being demoted for the second straight year. The Blazers finished at the bottom of the Second Division this season and will go down to the Third Division next season. Also being demoted are the Memphis Grizzlies.

A tight race in the Third Division ended with the New Orleans Pelicans and the Indiana Pacers being co-champions, barely beating out the New York Knickerbockers. 

The race to avoid relegation to the Fourth Division was equally tight. The three teams fighting for survival were the Detroit Pistons, the Orlando Magic and the Brooklyn Nets. In the end, Brooklyn finished last in the Third Division. Detroit and Orlando finished tied for the next worst record. However, the Magic won the tiebreaker with a 3-1 head-to-head record against Detroit, which will be a Fourth Division team next season.

The Denver Nuggets, who had been demoted to the Fourth Division this season, fought their way back to the Third Division by barely winning the bottom rung ahead of the Sacramento Kings. The Minnesota Timberwolves had good shot at promotion, but they lost their final two bottom level games against the Kings and the Lakers, opening the second promotion for the Kings.

Spurs join Warriors as dominant First Division champs

The San Antonio Spurs, promoted this season to the First Division, have stormed through the top level with a 13-3 record, already clinching the championship. Meanwhile, the Clippers aren't far from promotion – or a fight for promotion.

Chris Paul and Clippers are leading the way at the moment in the Second Division. But that could change quickly (Verse Photography/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

Drama has been in short supply during the first two seasons of pro basketball's First Division. 

Each season has produced a dominant champion, with the San Antonio Spurs and their 13-3 performance this season following the Golden State Warriors and their 18-1 output last year. The Spurs already have clinched the title this year, holding a three-game lead on the Atlanta Hawks (10-6).

The relegation side, likewise, has little left to be decided. The Boston Celtics (7-13) and Toronto Raptors (6-13) are all but ticketed for the Second Division next season. The Houston Rockets (7-10) are the next team on that cut list, but they are not imperiled with two weeks left in the season.

Last season, the Rockets barely escaped relegation because the Clippers had too many injuries for that to happen. The Clippers slipped to the Second Division this year, along with the Portland Trail Blazers.

The Spurs were promoted to the First Division this season, along with the Celtics. But those two teams had radically different fortunes this season against the top tier.

Following last season's romp, the Warriors have settled into the third place this season, holding a 9-6 record.

As of now, the Clippers have the best total record in the Second Division, and they should be headed back to the First Division next season. But those waters remain murky.

The Clippers are 12-9 in the Second Division, tied with 8-6 Washington with a .571 winning percentage, though the Clippers hold a one-half game lead. However, the Wizards are at Staples Center Wednesday night for an important showdown with the Clippers. 

The Clippers would gain clarity with a win, which would clinch the Second Division championship and promotion back to the top level. But if the Wizards win, then they move into the top spot outright, and the Clippers would suddenly be fighting for promotion. 

The next team down is the 10-9 Dallas Mavericks. Following Wednesday night's game, the Clippers have one more game in the Second Division, coming on April 5 at home against Dallas. Along with that game, the Mavericks have two more Second Division games, both on the road against the faltering Memphis Grizzlies on Friday night and April 12. Washington closes out its Second Division season Friday night against the Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City.

The Oklahoma City Thunder (11-10) is right there with the Mavericks, and the Milwaukee Bucks (7-7) aren't far behind. The Thunder will play the Bucks at home on April 4, then finish out their Second Division schedule on April 5 at Memphis. The Bucks' game with Oklahoma City is their only remaining game in the Second Division.

Memphis and Portland are the two bottom teams in the Second Division, and both appear headed downstairs next year. Unless, somehow, the Jazz crumbles even worse.

Down in the Third Division, the New Orleans Pelicans are on a light schedule, being the only western team at that level. The Pelicans are in the clubhouse at 9-5. Their .643 winning percentage is the best in the third tier, though the Pelicans are a game behind the Indiana Pacers (15-9) in the games column. In the event that one team finishes first in percentage and another finishes first in the games behind column, those are the two teams being promoted. 

The New York Knicks (13-9) also remain in strong position for promotion. They have only two more games for making their case, both this week against the Miami Heat.

The standings on the bottom of the Third Division are tight. The Detroit Pistons (9-14), the Orlando Magic (8-13) and the Brooklyn Nets (7-13) all are fighting against relegation, which is the plight for the two teams finishing at the bottom of this level.

The Denver Nuggets, demoted to the Fourth Division this season, apparently will climb right back out. The Nuggets (11-6) hold a comfortable lead for the Fourth Division title. The Sacramento Kings (9-6) and Minnesota Timberwolves (8-6) are battling for the second promotional spot out of the basement.

Warriors dominate pro basketball top tier in 2015-16

The Golden State Warriors were impressive enough in 2015-16 for securing the best regular season record of all time. But when we look at them against our First Division that season, they appear even better.

The 2015-16 Golden State Warriors regular season is in the books as the best ever for an NBA team. The Warriors finished 73-9, despite sputtering down the stretch with two home losses in April, finishing ahead of the 72-10 mark set by the Chicago Bulls in 1995-96.

Another way of viewing the Warriors is their performance against the cream of the NBA. Our scheme for promotion and relegation of pro basketball teams happens to originate with the 2015-16 season, putting the Warriors in the First Division.

We had to start somewhere, but it was easy. To decide which teams to place in which division entering 2015-2016, we simply consulted the NBA standings from the previous year. Top top four playoff seeded teams from each conference were placed in the First Division, the second four went into the Second Division, the next four went into the Third Division and the remaining three teams from each conference were placed in the dreaded Fourth Division.

Playing it out in 2015-2016, here is how it came in for the First Division.

Considering only their games against these teams, the top four seeded teams from each conference a year earlier, the Warriors were a dominant 18-1. They always showed up when the game actually stood to be a test of basketball. Probably about half of their losses during the regular season came in raw tests of endurance that the NBA and NHL impose upon their teams.

Relative to other team sports, travel in the NBA and NHL is dizzying. Even with all the soothing perks they receive, we simply cannot expect peak athletic performance night after night from athletes who get on and off of planes and into and out of airports as much as these NBA and NHL players.

Big league baseball teams play twice as many games, 162, but they'll spend three or four days in a road city, so 81 road games is only 27 destinations. But the winter leagues play them one at a time, so they are in and out. A baseball team might not fly 40 times in a season, but a winter team will fly 60 times. A winter team will often get on and off of planes three days in a row. Even a traveling baseball team will spend those three days in one town.

When the Warriors lost, it sometimes smacked of raw burnout. Like the first time they lost, after opening the season with 24 straight wins. It was December 12, 2015, in Milwaukee, the last game of a seven-game road trip that lasted 13 days. The Warriors were in the second game of a road back-to-back, coming off a double-overtime win the night before in Boston.

The Bucks won easily, 108-95. The Warriors had no legs, making nine of 36 shots from outside the lane and only six of 27 from the three-point zone. The Bucks were a middling team hungry for a marquee win at home and the Warriors couldn't put up a fight.

But when the Warriors went up against a real contender like the Clippers, the Cleveland Cavaliers or the Atlanta Hawks, the Warriors were bright-eyed and bushy tailed. An 18-1 slate against this group of First Division teams is impressive, because it was pretty representative of the league's best. Seven of the eight teams here went to the NBA playoffs, five survived to the quarterfinals, three to the semifinals and two to the finals.

To the extent that our groupings are wrong, promotion and relegation is a pretty satisfying way to fix them. For example, it's absurd that the San Antonio Spurs wouldn't appear in any grouping of the league's best eight teams. Turns out, the Spurs had a down regular season, for their high standards, seeding only fifth in the Western Conference for the 2015 playoffs. So, the Spurs began 2015-16 season in our Second Division.

You knew that couldn't last, and it didn't. The Spurs crushed the Second Division with a championship 18-1 record, easily securing their promotion to the First Division in 2016-17. Joining the Spurs in promotion are the Boston Celtics (12-8), a distant second-place team that barely beat out the Dallas Mavericks (11-9) and the Washington Wizzards (10-9).

For the Spurs and Celtics going up, there must be two teams coming down to the Second Division from the First Division. The two teams relegated were the Clippers and the Portland Trail Blazers. The Clippers, with their injuries, couldn't swing with the heavyweights and finished only 7-13 against against the First Division. The Trail Blazers were a vulnerable First Division entrant, the best team in a weak division, and their 6-14 performance against this top tier proved that they do not belong.

On the bottom of the Second Division we find the Brooklyn Nets, who were, predictably, in over their heads at 2-16 in this tier. The Nets will go to the Third Division in 2016-17. Also going down are the 7-13 New Orleans Pelicans. The Milwaukee Bucks appeared doomed to relegation for much of the season, losing nine of their first 12 Second Division games. However, the Bucks rallied with five wins in their last six games and finished 8-11, safely ahead of the Pelicans.

The Third Division produced another easy winner in the Oklahoma City Thunder, which finished well ahead of the Utah Jazz and the Miami Heat. At 16-3, the Thunder is well qualified for Second Division promotion. The Jazz and Heat both finished 12-8, and they split their two games head-to-head. The Jazz gets the prize, though, for points difference in those games. The Heat won, 92-91 on Dec. 9 in Miami, and the Jazz won much bigger, 98-83, on Jan. 9 in Utah.

Phoenix finished 3-16, way in over its head, and is now headed to the Fourth Division, along with the Denver Nuggets.

Now we come to the Fourth Division, the dregs of the league. We have teams here like the Lakers (4-10) and the Philadelphia 76ers (3-10) who can't even hold up against this competition. Both should be relegated out of the Fourth Division, but there's no place lower for them to go.

Perhaps there isn't much to be shown for Phil Jackson's executive leadership of the New York Knickerbockers, so far, but we can say the climbed out of the Fourth Division. The Knicks tied for the division title with the Orlando Magic at 9-4. Both are promoted to the Third Division in 2016-2017.

Lakers vs. Clippers: Not a rivalry

Since the Clippers moved to Los Angeles 28 years ago, they have been the worst franchise in the NBA, while the Lakers have been the best. So, how can we even begin to consider them rivals?

By PINE SISKIN
The Big Leagues in LA

The Lakers and Clippers will play for the second time this season Wednesday night. In its advance story, the Los Angeles Times cautiously raised the possibility of a rivalry, mixing in enough doubt for protection, just in case the question is ridiculous. 

But the question is not ridiculous, even if the answer to the question, "Is Lakers vs. Clippers a rivalry?" can't be anything but, "Of course not!" What's ridiculous is that answer isn't a resounding "Yes!"

Two teams are rivals if they frequently play against each other with something big on the line, directly on the line such that the winner will win it and the loser will thereby lose it. It could be first place for the moment, but it's more likely to be division championships, playoff meetings or bragging rights within a shared community.

So, the conditions are in place for a rivalry between the Lakers and the Clippers, who live in the same division and the same town, but the Clippers have not been up to it. The Lakers got here first (1960) and already owned the town when the Clippers moved up from San Diego in 1984. Since the Clippers arrived, the Lakers have won eight NBA championships and appeared in the NBA Finals three other times. During that same period, the Clippers have two winning seasons. For two generations, LA has been home to the best NBA franchise, and the worst. No rivalry.

As it happens, the Clippers are on the move this year. The floor is leveled, at least for now, with the emergence of Blake Griffin as a star last year, the Clippers' acquisition of Chris Paul this year, and the Lakers' transition away from Phil Jackson's triangle offense. By some measures, this year's Clippers team is their best since they came to Los Angeles. It could even be that the Clippers are the best team in town.

It's still very early. The Clippers are 9-5 and the Lakers are 10-8, losing three straight. Both teams have enormous holes.

But they both are contenders, and that stokes the hint of a rivalry. The Clippers won the previous meeting this year between the two teams, 102-94 on Jan. 14 at Staples Center. The Clippers were the home team. Wednesday night, the Lakers are the home team. Not that it matters. Both teams are at home. And, for once, both are in the thick of it.