TO SAY THIS has been one interesting season is understating the obvious, like reasoning a CLICO policy- holder might have problems claiming insurance benefits.
But lost amidst the hype of a no-holds-barred brawl, Ricardo Yearwood’s homage to Bruce Lee and the soap opera-like drama surrounding a particular team on the hill, is one of the most competitive Premier League competitions of the last decade.
This isn’t to suggest that the play has been stellar by any stretch of the imagination, not when the league-scoring average is currently an abysmal 67.4 points per team.
Heck, schoolboys don’t even score 60 per contest and they’ve already netted below 50 points for the season – twice! There are probably more prolific netball teams and they don’t have the luxury of counting in twos.
Born of this general incapability of scoring, though, is something that even the NBA is presently striving for and never had – an overall competitive balance.
Just in case you haven’t noticed, there are no real clear-cut favourites to hoist the league title – let alone make the playoffs – halfway through the season and each team has already played ten games. Even the league-leading 8-2 Bulls, who were once beating teams at a ridiculous average of 20 points per contest, merely hold a miniscule one-game lead over second-place Warriors.
So crammed is the tightly-packed 11-team table that just three games separate second from eight, while nothing more than a game differentiates one position from the one after it. No one has been mathematically eliminated from the post-season as yet either, though few would expect the 3-7 group of Tridents, Patriots and Cougars to contend for anything but the league’s cellar position.
Even the 4-6 Senators are just two games behind Lakers and Jackson for the last play-off berth and are only one game back of the three-man bunch including the defending champions Cavs, Sonics and Pinelands. And it’s not as if the usual contenders have been beating up on each other while the minnows do likewise.
If this season were ever made into a film, any given Saturday would be the most apt title for the movie as it best describes the current impossibility of picking a winner for any given game. Doubt me?
Consider this chain of events; Jackson were defeated by Tridents, Patriots beat Bulls, Lakers lost to Cougars and Cavs lost to all the aforementioned except Lakers. Yet those same Cavs, winners of their last three, are probably the closest things to a “safe” pick for the play-offs even after what would be too tumultuous of a two-month stretch for most teams to overcome.
When you look at the remaining “contenders”, the champs are the only ones with no real basketball-related weaknesses to speak of, and now they are more motivated than anyone else to win it all. Unless of course you believe that head coach Adrian Craigwell doesn’t have these boys thinking that the whole world is out to get Station Hill. Yeah, right.
Furthermore, the Cavs might have an added card up their sleeves for the play-offs named Kelvin Patterson, as their leading scorer’s three-month suspension could be up come play-off time. And who are you going to pick to beat them anyhow?
The league-leading Bulls, who have problems defending the paint once you get past their gimmicky traps and presses? How about those undersized Lakers that have just three serviceable big men and no real ball-handler or floor general past Derek Browne? Maybe fortune will continue to favour the frontcourt-thin Warriors even after they repeatedly rode their luck in close games, having owned a point differential of just 2.3 per contest in the first round.
It could be Pinelands considering their overall depth at each position, but who’s willing to put stock in an already unstable team that’s about to add another volatile personality by way of Gary Miller? Maybe Sonics can overcome a serious lack of quality players and ride George Haynes and Akeem Marsh all the way to a title.
The only thing for certain is that there is no certainty this season. You just have to wait until any given Saturday.
