What The Playoffs Mean: The Gorgeous Opportunity To Lose

The playoffs are the sacred text, broad and malleable enough to explain any point of view. They are the way players reach immortality, the way GMs keep their jobs for another year. They are the reason Courtney Lee, Trevor Ariza, JJ Barea and Derek Fisher are kind of close to household names. They are why they play the games and why we watch. But they also mean a lot more than this, which is why we are here. From now until the end of the finals, we'll be here, toiling away, trying to unpack exactly what makes these games so great, exactly What The Playoffs Mean.

This post was written by Benny Nadeau, an editorial intern at The Brooklyn Game, student at Emerson College and a Nets fan who uses "we" when talking about the team. He loves Toko Shengelia more than anyone, and we love him for that. Follow him @bennyflyz.


As a New Jersey Nets fan for so long, there is something incredibly painless about losing now. The Nets haven’t made the playoffs since the 2006-2007 season, and it has made me as hardened as my father who grew up with the chokiest of Red Sox teams. I cried when we traded Jason Kidd to the Dallas Mavericks in 2008 so he could get a legitimate shot of winning a championship (he did) and learned to be unfairly skeptical about any NBA player with the last name of Williams (after drafting Marcus, Sean, Terrence). After enduring the miserable-record-setting 0-18 start to the 2009-2010 season en route to a horrifying 12-70 campaign, it was tough to see through the tears clouding my vision—but, to be fair, it was equally as hard to see through the paper bags as well.

Through all of this, there was hope: John Wall. The freakishly athletic would-be superstar out of Kentucky was the clear-cut top prize in the 2010 draft. And at a 25 percent chance at landing the number one pick and the savior to our floundering franchise, I decided to have an NBA Draft Lottery party. I invited all of my friends—the same ones who had given me reminders at every possible moment of the Nets’ futility—over to watch my team enter a new era of basketball.

I watched through my hands when the New Jersey Nets received the 3rd pick in the lottery. John Wall would go to Washington and the curse continued.

Its taken some time, but in an odd way, things have worked out.

What The Playoffs Mean: Who Knows

The playoffs are the sacred text, broad and malleable enough to explain any point of view. They are the way players reach immortality, the way GMs keep their jobs for another year. They are the reason Courtney Lee, Trevor Ariza, JJ Barea and Derek Fisher are kind of close to household names. They are why they play the games and why we watch. But they also mean a lot more than this, which is why we are here. From now until the end of the finals, we'll be here, toiling away, trying to unpack exactly what makes these games so great, exactly What The Playoffs Mean.

I was supposed to be writing about how great the week leading up to the playoffs is. How when your team makes it, that period is full of limitless possibilities. How the best part of the playoffs doesn't take place during the playoffs at all, but in the days leading up to it. That's when infinity is on your side for once. That's when your team wins the title. Because once the games actually start, that's when reality blinds you—that's when your team can't guard a stupid pick and roll or beat a zone defense or hit open shots on the road even though they are goddamn professionals. But before that first weekend? You're wary of making plans in June because you may have to watch your team in the finals.

But that's not what I'm writing about because there are terrible maniacs in this world. Monday carried on and words like "Boston" and "West" came to mean awful events instead of American cities.

So what do the playoffs mean right now? The same thing they mean every night, Pinky: Nothing. This week was another reminder—in a far too long line of constant horrific reminders—that the only thing that really matters is that people die, more often than not, unjustly. So it's embarrassing how soon on Monday my mind shifted to Brook Lopez. He's making his playoff debut this weekend on the team I root for—the team that's making its return to the playoffs after a six-year hiatus. This stuff is important to me and I don't think there's anything I can do about that.

But also, what else should I be thinking about after tragedy? My family and friends? Why, to remind myself that they are the people I'll miss or devastate, depending on the timing if our respective farewells? Should I be thinking about the people behind the bombing? I dunno. I'm not one of the people tasked with finding the culprits, so not sure that will do any good. Even now that we're able to put a terrible face to the senselessness, why should I keep thinking about them? I guess eventually I'll be interested in trying to understand this mess. But also, I'll never really be able to understand it or any of the other tragedies constantly happening around the world. And I like my job well enough, but it's tough to comfort myself with spreadsheets and client memos.

So I think about the playoffs. I get how small it is, but everything is small—except for the big things. So I don't know, hold on to the small things or something. Look, I'm a little preoccupied while writing this—the second season is starting, after all.

What The Playoffs Mean: The Playoffs Kinda Suck When Your Team Plays

The playoffs are the sacred text, broad and malleable enough to explain any point of view. They are the way players reach immortality, the way GMs keep their jobs for another year. They are the reason Courtney Lee, Trevor Ariza, JJ Barea and Derek Fisher are kind of close to household names. They are why they play the games and why we watch. But they also mean a lot more than this, which is why we are here. From now until the end of the finals, we'll be here, toiling away, trying to unpack exactly what makes these games so great, exactly What The Playoffs Mean.
 
Here's how I imagine a day in the life of a near-homeless heroin addict: