NY Knicks — Playoff seedings: Wizards #9, Hornets #10
To finish off the playoff picture in the East, I went ahead and gave the Wizards the nine seed, and the Hornets the ten.
As long as Brad Beal is playing for Washington they’ll string together some wins and sneak in the play-in spot. The man is an absolute superstar who makes playing the game of basketball effortless.
Don’t forget the Wizards now have Spencer Dinwiddie and Kyle Kuzma, — they aren’t the same kind of player as Russell Westbrook, but they are nice pieces to have.
Kuzma often gets hate, but in his “breakout” season with the Lakers, he was putting up some nice numbers. 18.7 points and shot 51.5% from the field. So perhaps moving on from Los Angeles gives him that same confidence, I personally doubt it, but who knows.
The main reason I have the Wizards as number nine is because if Russell Westbrook and Brad Beal couldn’t get better than the eighth seed, I doubt the group they have now does anything spectacular either.
To finish it off, the young, fun to watch Charlotte Hornets get that tenth seed. Lamelo Ball who I wish the Knicks still somehow would have gotten is shaping up to be an exciting point guard in this league.
Lamelo Ball, Terry Rozier, P.J. Washington, and rookie James Bouknight will be very, very fun to watch. But looking at the rest of the Eastern Conference, I still think they need to develop, get experience, and maybe one or two more players until they start pushing for a more prime finish in the standings.