If a playoff drought ends in the middle of a pandemic because more than 2/3 of the league (and maybe even the entire league) makes it in... and no one is there to see it... did it even happen?
That’s the bizarre question I’ve found myself asking recently. With the National Hockey League and their Players Association agreeing on a proposal for a 24 team playoff situation to resume the season and the National Basketball Association discussing situations where up to all 30 teams play in a modified playoff structure, the Valley’s playoff drought in both sports could come to an end. All at a neutral site with no fans in attendance.
But, would it even count?
It’s the most Arizona sports fan query one could pose. It’s a somewhat exciting and yet also depressing exercise. Kind of like proposing to the person of your dreams only to find out you’re somehow related.
The Coyotes haven’t made the playoffs since their magical run that ended in the Western Conference Finals against Los Angeles. That was eight long years ago.
The Suns haven’t made the playoffs since 2010, since their unbelievable run that ended at the hands of Los Angeles in the Western Conference Finals.
It's fair to say Coyotes and Suns fans are thirstier for the playoffs than a quarantined Instagram model is for poolside bikini pics.
The Yotes have the more convincing argument that it should count now that they've found themselves in a details-to-be-released "play-in" series against the Nashville Predators. That’s because when commissioner Gary Bettman pressed the pause button on the season, the Desert Dawgs were scratchin’ and clawin’ their way back into contention. They were only 4 points behind the final Wild Card spot and had been seriously in the playoff picture all season long. The NHL, however, isn't defining the "play-in" as a "play-off," despite the fact that they mean the exact same thing.
The Suns on the other hand, weren’t a winning team since their brief stint as the NBA’s darling in the first month of the season. In a weakened Western Conference, their subpar performance was enough to keep them in striking distance of the eighth seed without ever really challenging for it. Basically, they were the Dane Cook of basketball teams. Just entertaining enough to be talked about, but never good enough to ever be in the actual conversation.
As Rudy Gobert was turning the Utah Jazz locker room, and the NBA in general, into a petri dish, the Suns were 13 games under .500 and a full six games back of Memphis for the final playoff spot with only 16 games to play. An almost insurmountable deficit.
Whether or not they’re deserving of being there, if Arizona sports teams have taught us anything it’s that getting in is more than half the battle.
Take the 1975-76 Suns. They finished just 42-40, where they didn’t have home-court advantage in any series and managed to win the Western Conference and push the vaunted Boston Celtics to six games in the Finals.
Then there is the 2008 Arizona Cardinals. They were considered to be the ‘worst playoff teams of all-time’ by pundits. They were 9-7 and snuck into the playoffs only to shock the league and make the Super Bowl and fall one Santonio Holmes foot down from being champions.
So will the Coyotes or Suns playoff drought actually end in this pandemic postseason? Not without one Oliver Miller sized asterisk. And that’s alright, because, as the Arizona Lottery has always told us, you can’t win if you don’t play.
