Whoever came up with this s*** needs a raise

The NBA has become too predictable.

On the May 6 edition of ESPN's Get Up, 16-year NBA veteran Kendrick Perkins loudly asserted that "it's way harder to win a championship in the NBA than it is in the NFL" and was promptly mocked by host Mike Greenberg and NFL veterans Ryan Clark and Dan Orlovsky. The response was swift but clear: winning three, possibly four single-elimination games on the path to a championship is a far more arduous trek than beating the same team four times in seven tries across four series.

The single-elimination nature of postseason competition in a number of sports works against the NBA. The NFL's playoffs, March Madness' field of 68 and the World Cup's knockout stage all breed the idea that anyone can beat anyone on any day. The idea that one bad night separates the best team in the field from the offseason intrinsically boosts interest in these league's playoffs.

To be fair to the NBA (and the MLB and the NHL), a seven-game series has its own merit. Series lend themselves to storylines developed over the course of a couple of weeks, twists and turns along a dramatic ride from the first game in a series to the fourth, the fifth, the sixth and the seventh. Too often, however, the league struggles with a reputation that the best teams, barring unforeseen injuries, are always suited to find a way to four wins in seven tries.

The numbers support this unfortunate image: excluding the pandemic-altered 2020 NBA Playoffs, teams seeded in the top 2 in the Eastern and Western conferences made the conference finals 21 out of 24 times between 2014 and 2019. The three outliers do not help the cause:

• In 2016, the Oklahoma City Thunder won 55 games in the regular season, earned the West's third seed in the playoffs and blitzed their way through the first two rounds of the postseason before falling to the Golden State Warriors in dramatic seven-game fashion in the Western Conference Finals.

• In 2018, the Cleveland Cavaliers sleepwalked their way through a regular season marred by trades, baffling inconsistency and J.R. Smith throwing a bowl of soup at Damon Jones. The Cavaliers had the ultimate trump card, however, in LeBron James, and after winning two seven-game series sandwiched around a four-game sweep of the Toronto Raptors, they made the NBA Finals. Once there, Cleveland was swept by Golden State.

• In 2019, the Portland Trail Blazers grabbed the third seed in the West on the strength of 14 wins in their final 17 regular season games. One Damian Lillard walk-off against Oklahoma City and one C.J. McCollum clutch performance against the Denver Nuggets later, the Blazers booked a date with Golden State in the Western Conference Finals. Like Cleveland the year before, however, Portland was swept by the Warriors.

It is curious that LeBron James headlines the shortlist of one-two seed party crashers. Nearly three years after his Cavaliers bulled their way to the Finals, his Los Angeles Lakers sit parked at seventh in the West, staring down the barrel at a date with Golden State in the NBA's newest addition to its playoffs: the Play-In Tournament.

The Play-In idea is not a new one for the NBA in 2021. The tournament was utilized in the Orlando bubble last August for the 2020 postseason; by virtue of finishing within four games of each other in the standings, the Portland Trail Blazers and the Memphis Grizzlies faced off in a double-elimination tournament for the West's eighth seed. Portland won the first game and the spot in the playoffs, nixing the need for a second game. This year, the NBA beefed up its Play-In Tournament with a format aimed at juicing the postseason:

• In each conference, the four teams seeded seventh through tenth enter the Play-In Tournament.

• The seventh and eighth seeds square off, with the winner advancing to the playoffs as the seventh seed.

• The ninth and tenth seeds match up, with the winner advancing to a final game against the loser of the seven-eight game. The loser is eliminated from postseason contention.

• The winner of the final game advances to the playoffs as the eighth seed, while the loser is eliminated.

The tournament has had its fair share of proponents and critics alike, none louder than James himself. After a May 3 victory over Denver, the four-time league MVP stated bluntly that "whoever came up with this s*** needs to be fired." To give the situation its proper context, James missed 27 games this season with a sprained ankle while Anthony Davis missed 36 games with a host of injuries; the Lakers finished under .500 in games in which their franchise cornerstones were both sidelined.

James' sentiment about the Play-In Tournament barely entered the airwaves before being critiqued, however. Many were quick to point out that the 18-year veteran sang a much different tune nearly a year ago while the NBA planned its Orlando restart and the Lakers sat comfortably atop the West's standings, far from being in Play-In jeopardy. Karma is cruel.

Wednesday night, James, Davis and the Lakers will square off against Stephen Curry and those Golden State Warriors in Los Angeles with the seventh seed in the West on the line. The matchup will be the fifth playoff meeting between the two players who have defined the last decade in the NBA, with the previous four matchups coming in the NBA Finals each year between 2015 and 2018. The game is almost too perfect even for a Hollywood script. Just what the NBA's intrigue doctor ordered.

Tuesday's Eastern Conference's Play-In matchups are headlined by Russell Westbrook, 184 triple-doubles strong, leading the Washington Wizards up to Boston to battle with the Celtics for a ticket to the playoffs. The Indiana Pacers and the Charlotte Hornets will fight for the right to meet the loser of that game for the eighth and final playoff seed out East, while the Memphis Grizzlies and the San Antonio Spurs will duel for the same right out West as the undercard to Wednesday's main event.

The last year and change has been a roller coaster for the NBA. From being in the eye of the storm of COVID-induced shutdowns to being at the forefront of social justice activism to embarking on a wild 72-game regular season sprint marred by postponements and a higher volume of superstar injuries than usual, the last 14 months have been a whirlwind. But after everything the league has endured, the next four nights could bring a level of intrigue never before seen in its playoffs, thanks in no small part to its premier superstar and marquee franchise fighting for its postseason lives.

Sorry, LeBron. This is gonna be good.