The '40 before 20' rule is silly

Teams with great regular season records are likely to win the title, news at 11.

Good morning. March is right around the corner. Let's basketball.

The Celtics suffered their 20th loss of the season on Wednesday with "just" 38 wins, which eliminates Boston for consideration from the 40-20 rule, a Phil Jackson invention that states that a team is a title contender only if it wins 40 games before it loses 20. Famously only four teams since 1980 have won the championship without achieving the 40-20 rule: the '95 Rockets, the '04 Pistons, the '06 Heat and the '21 Bucks.

There is nothing magical about 40 before 20. If a team wins 40 games before it loses 20 games, it's a really good team. A 40-19 record is a .677 winning percentage, equivalent to a 55-win team. Whether a team is hotter before the 60-game mark or after is irrelevant. Teams that aren't really good don't win championships. Using 40 before 20 as the marker of a really good team is just mystical faff. We have standings and records! We can do basic math.

Per Stathead, for the same period Jackson's rule covers, there have been six NBA champions who won fewer than 55 games (or the season-shortened equivalent) and won the title: the '95 Rockets, the '04 Pistons, the '06 Heat, the '21 Bucks, the '22 Warriors and the '23 Nuggets. So to the original four from the 40-20 rule, you add the Warriors and Nuggets title teams. Both of those teams were smoking hot for the first part of the season and ease up in the stretch run. Both went into the playoffs as clear contenders, not because they hit 40 before 20, but because they were freaking good.

My argument is that what makes a title contender is more art than science, and is totally contextual on what else is happening in a given season. In that '21 season, all three teams who hit 40 before 20 were in the Western Conference (the Jazz, Suns and Clippers). Some years, like this season, there are three 40-20 teams. Some years there are five or six.

No cutoff can really capture how wide open the NBA feels this season. The Pistons, Thunder and Spurs – the three teams that achieved 40 before 20 – are all viable championship contenders. There are at least three more teams I'd put on that list right now (Celtics, Nuggets, Wolves), and probably more (Knicks, Cavaliers, Rockets) as a contention maximalist. One or two of the extra squads might get hot and hit 55 wins, or the 53-win mark that would capture all but the three "worst" regular season teams to win a title in the past 45 years. Respect to Phil Jackson, one of the greatest coaches ever. But this is some faux-intellectual woo that doesn't really say anything interesting.

Next up: Ziller takes on Lawler's Law. (Just kidding.)

The Doctors Are In

More tank talk. Sorry. Skip it if it's not your cup of tea.

Lauri Markkanen reportedly suffered an ankle and hip injury in practice on Wednesday, and will get an MRI. And reportedly the NBA will send an independent doctor to scope out the situation and determine if the Jazz are violating league policy by holding the Finnisher out.