Welcome to the Morning Shootaround, where every weekday you’ll get a fresh, topical column from one of SI.com’s NBA writers: Howard Beck on Mondays, Chris Mannix on Tuesdays, Michael Pina on Wednesdays, Chris Herring on Thursdays and Rohan Nadkarni on Fridays.
In the annals of history, it may not be hard to interpret the 2021 NBA playoffs as an aberration. Upsets aren’t entirely rare in the NBA playoffs, but entire brackets tend to be a bit more predictable than what we’ve seen over the past couple months, where only five All-Stars played in the conference finals.