I read all four and I suggest you do the same, especially if you're like me and thirsting for more NBA content. I'm not just saying this to set the stage for when the Detroit edition appears — there are a lot of really talented writers out producing quality coverage for blogs, and it's always nice to see when the national media puts them in lights.

I tried to avoid doing this after all the confusion regarding these playoff tiebreakers , but I can't help myself:

Tomorow's games:
Bulls vs. Toronto
Washington at Detroit (i.e. the Tony Delk show)
Indiana vs. Orlando

If Bulls win(Bulls guaranteed higher seed than Milwaukee):

• AND Washington wins AND Indiana wins:
  • Washington is 42-40, Bulls/Indiana are tied at 41-41
  • Indiana wins tiebreaker (division record)
  • Bulls are the 7th seed
• Washington loses, Indiana wins:
  • Bulls/Indiana/Washington are tied at 41-41
  • Bulls win tiebreaker (highest winning percentage in games among the 3 teams)
  • Bulls are 5th seed
• Washington loses, Indiana loses:
  • Bulls/Washington are tied at 41-41, Indiana is at 40-42
  • Bulls win tiebreaker (head-to-head versus Washington)
  • Bulls are 5th seed

If Bulls lose(Bulls guaranteed lower seed than Washington):

• Indiana loses
  • Bulls/Indiana/Milwaukee are tied at 40-42
  • Bulls lose tiebreaker (lowest division record)
  • Bulls are 8th seed
  • I cry myself to sleep
• Indiana wins
  • Indiana at 41-41, Bulls/Milwaukee tied at 40-42
  • Bulls lose tiebreaker (lower division record)
  • Bulls are 8th seed
  • I cry myself to sleep

Feel free to check my work, the real wrinkle was the Bulls being 3-1 against Washington during the season, which set them apart from Indiana (who split their games against the Bulls and Washington) and Washington.

 I'd say the most likely situation is the first, with everyone winning and the Bulls earning the 7th seed.

And if I needed to remind everyone:
5th seed - face Cleveland
7th seed - face Miami
8th seed - face Detroit, I cry myself to sleep.

Here is my mock draft, usually when a player does well in the tournament, their stock goes up in the draft. Teams are gonna pass on Sheldon Williams, due to poor tournament performance. He’ll be the next Elton Brand and will help that Hornets go to the playoffs next year. I put Reddick with the Jazz, looking at the Jazz's draft history they pick over hyped white dudes, who can’t play in the NBA. Hopefully the Sonics get Brandon Roy, he and Ridnouer will form the best back court in the league circa 2110. I only did college players that I have seen play and one Eurotrash dude that Espn ranked high. I guessed the teams that will end up with the highest lottery picks.

 1. Bulls from knicks- joekim Noah.  Had a good tournment, he could really develop 

2. Portland Trailblazers- Adam Morrison. Keep him local.  

3. Charlotte Bobcats-  Tyrus Thomas

4. Atlanta Hawks-Lemarcus Aldridge

5. Toronto Raptors-  Randy foye

6. Orlando Magic- Josh Mcroberts

7. Golden state- Andrea Bargani. The bay area better have ample olive oil and garlic.

8. Boston Celtics- Dee Brown

9. Timerwolves- Rodney Carney

10. Supersonics- Brandon Roy

11. Rockets- Al Hortford

12. Bulls- Ronnie Brewer

13.Utah jazz- J.J reddick. Another white person playing basketball in Utah, I don’t understand.

14 Hornets- Sheldon Williams. Every team will regret passing on him

15. 76ers- Maurice Ager

16 Indiana- Jordan Farmar.  

17. Sacramento-leon powe

Rudy Gay was going pretty high but he will end up a second rounder, due to poor performance in the tournement    

The formula used to predict the win probability for games was borrowed from Ed Kupfer, an illustrious poster at the APBRmetric forum. Specifically in this thread, Kupfer lays out the statistical basis for the WinProb formula, which calculates the probability of a home team winning given winning percentages, location of the game and days of rest for each team.

Let's start with the Lakers, who have seven games left:

(Let's do some explaining: date, home and away should be obvious. H-Win% and A-Win% are the home and away teams' current winning percentages, respectively. H-Rest is days since the last game for the home team; A-Rest is the same for the away team. H-Prob is the calculated probability of the home team winning. T-Prob is the calculated WinProb for the team in question - in this case, the Lakers.)

After the road back-to-back this week, it's almost smooth sailing for the Lakers with their last five games coming at home.

The toughest of those five is against Phoenix, who with three days left in the season might take to resting semi-frail Steve Nash and overworked Shawn Marion. Even if the Suns play like they have all season, the Lakers still have a 48% probability of winning. The game is essentially a toss-up.

L.A.'s two road games should be losses, with the Lakers having only a 44.8% probability of winning one of them and a 4.8% likelihood of winning both.  There's a 60% likelihood the Lakers lose them both.

The most likely scenario for the five home games is sadly 4-1, with the loss coming to either the Clippers (who aren't really the away team) or the Suns.

So, couple with L.A.'s current record, that would have the Lakers ending the season at 44-38, and easily in the playoffs.

Let's move on to our eighth place Kings:

As we all know, this week is going to be tough. The likelihood of winning one of the next three is  55.9%. The likelihood of winning two is 43.2%. All three? 0.5%. Yikes. Losing all three? 53.3%. Uhh...

So the most likely scenario is to go 1-2 this week. The second most likely scenario is to go 0-3. The third is 2-1, and there is an absolutely miniscule chance to 3-0.

It looks the best bet is to pray for a split in Texas and hope the dominance of the Clippers continues.

But let's assume the worst: 0-3. The Kings close out with 4 of 5 in ARCO. Three of those home games leave the Kings with a strong probability of winning, and the other is Phoenix. The road game is Denver, always a difficult task.

So, let's imagine 3-2 in the last five - a near worst-case scenario - coupled with this week's 0-3 worst case scenario. That's finishing 3-5, and leaving the Kings with a 2005-06 regular season record of 41-41.

If the Kings can pull out either one game on the current road swing or one of the games against Denver or Phoenix, they'd sit at 42-40, still probably two games behind L.A. for the coveted seventh spot. If they manage to steal one from the Clippers and hold court against Phoenix, they'd be 43-39, still likely a game back.

But if the Lakers manage to lose on the home floor to Phoenix and the Clippers - which is very possible - while the Kings hit their likely best-case scenario, then it's gravy. The teams would tie for the seventh position, and (should the scenarios play out) the Kings would hold the tiebreaker advantage. (Since the teams split their four matchups, the next tiebreaker in conference record. If those were even, it'd go to division record. Luckily, because the Kings lost to a wealth of Eastern teams this season, they hold a sturdy advantage in both categories. Of course, had they not lost so many games against Eastern teams, they might not be in this predicament.)

So, the Kings really need to go 5-3 to have a shot at seventh place, with the Lakers going 4-3. And yes, that scenario is plausible, if hopeful. And I'm hopeful. So I'm predicting it. There. Happy?

Don't sleep on the Hornets, though:

Actually, you might be able to sleep on the Hornets. They have 10 games left, with four likely wins (hosting Golden State, Toronto, Seattle and Utah), one toss-up (versus Cleveland) and five likely losses (at Detroit, Dallas, Sacramento, Phoenix and the Lakers). The Utah game will be tough, and I would guess that the Hornets could steal one at the end of the season from Phoenix or L.A. So, 5-5 seems real reasonable. (For the record, the sum of probabilities is 4.6 - that means the Hornets are expected to win 4.6 of these games. Five seems right.)

Going 5-5 would put the Hornets at 40-42. The Kings would have to go 2-6 to fall back to the Hornets at that pace, something very unlikely to happen.

But remember that worst-case scenario for the Kings up there? It was 3-5, with losses at Dallas, San Antonio, the Clippers and Denver and a home loss to Phoenix. It didn't count a home loss to the Hornets.

What if it was the Hornets instead of the Suns who beat the Kings in ARCO? Then, you'd likely have the Hornets going 6-4 and finishing 41-41. The 3-5 finish would put the Kings at 41-41. The Hornets, having taken two of three from Sacramento already, would have the tiebreaker and make the playoffs.

Damn.

So, um, like I said: Don't sleep on the Hornets. All they have to do is take care of business at home and beat the Kings in ARCO (and hope the Kings can't win in Texas or SoCal).

There's one last team in the hunt - the Utah Jazz:

It's actually pretty grim for the Jazz, who still have San Antonio twice and Dallas once. That's like three sure losses. Let's start with that. 0-3.

Utah's other road games are in Minnesota and New Orleans. We've assumed New Orleans will hold serve against Utah in Oklahoma City, but I can imagine the Jazz beating the Wolves. That's 1-4.

The other four home games for Utah (besides San Antonio's visit tonight) are Portland, Houston, Denver and Golden State. 4-0 in those isn't impossible, but it's unlikely at a 24.1% probability. 3-1 is more likely at 43.4%. So let's go with 3-1.

That makes 4-5 total, and a 39-43 record - not even sniffing the playoffs.

So the Jazz would have to beat the Hornets (40-42), sweep the non-Spurs home games (41-41) and steal one in their Dallas-San Antonio back-to-back (42-40) to pass a Kings team that finishes 3-5 (which was a worst-case scenario, not counting a Hornets loss). The Jazz, by not having a shot at the tiebreaker with the Kings, need a miracle, really.

All theoryball aside, here's what it looks like will happen (through my royal purple tinged glasses):

Bank on it! (Actually, don't.)

Call me crazy, but I had absolutely no desire to see four Pistons playing at once in the All Star Game.  This has nothing to do with my thoughts on whether they deserved the spot; it was simply boring.  If I wanted to watch "Pistons basketball" I would watch a DET game.  Do people really want to watch Rip running off staggered screens?  And was anyone really surprised that four Pistons plus Pierce outplayed the West?  Hell, four Raptors plus Pierce would likely beat the West, too.  Virtually any NBA team playing team basketball would beat an All-Star team featuring guys trying lobs from half court.  And yeah, I would feel the same way about four Spurs.  I know how the Spurs play.  I don't know how Manu would play with Nash, Marion, Dirk and Brand.  That's what I would want to see.

My favorite part of the latest Isiah trade isn't that the Knicks will be paying $60+ million a year (including luxury tax) for Marbury and Francis.  It's not that these two players are incompatible due to both of them being undersized for a shooting guard (not that they play much defense anyway).  Nor is it that the combination will drive the lying, sniveling Larry Brown to a premature demise.  The best part about this deal is that multiple media outlets are reporting that Isiah is stockpiling assets in order to go after Garnett in the summer.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  I can see only one high-quality asset the Knicks have that MIN could possibly want.  And that's Channing Frye.  They have don't have any premium draft picks over the next two years.  Meanwhile a team like CHI could offer some combination of Deng, Gordon, Duhon, Nocioni, Hinrich and Chandler plus multiple premium first round picks.

I didn't get to watch the SA-SEA game because the NBA League Pass channel was blacked out and I didn't notice until the game was already over.  I'm beginning to see the early signs of Spurs withdrawal.

Here are my quick midseason player reviews; based on minutes of careful consideration and preseason expectations.

Coach Pop, B

Clearly trying to establish a rotation ASAP but stuck with Finley in the starting lineup way too long.  Has successfully kept Manu's minutes down but needs to do the same for Timmeh; props for loosening the reins on Parker.

Mike Budenholzer, A+

I just like saying his name.  Boo-din-hol-zer.

Sean Marks, B+

He's played well when given the opportunity and helped spawn a new catch phrase:  AND SEAN MARKS FINISHES THE JOB!!!

Beno Udrih, B

Yeah, Van Exel is a better ball-handler, but that's the end of the list in my book.

Fabricio Oberto, C+

He looks less lost every time he plays and always brings the effort.

Brent Barry, D

40.3% from the field and 33.7% from 3 isn't good enough for a guy that's getting $5 million a year to shoot the ball.

Robert Horry, NA

The regular season?  We're talking about the regular season?

Nick Van Exel, D

Why do I have the feeling that Spurs fans will blame a key playoff loss on his poor shot selection and total inability to guard anyone with legs?

Nazr Mohammed, B-

I'm seeing improvement, but he needs to up his blocks and cut down on turnovers and the ubiquitous mental errors.

Rasho Nesterovic, B

As solid as ever, but he needs to cut down on his ubiquitous lack of athleticism.

Michael Finley, D-

How bad has Finley played?  The lineup of TP/BB/MF/TD/RS has outscored its opponents by a whopping 13 points in 286 minutes.  That amounts to 2.2 points per game.  For a team with a 6.5 point differential.

The Sickness, B-

Swap Manu for Finley in the above lineup and you have a squad that has outscored its opponents  by 113 points in 335 minutes; 16.2 points per game.  Certainly not the same guy we saw in the playoffs, but, well, this isn't the playoffs.  His regular season numbers from last year are similar and his grade would be higher if not for the injuries.

Bruce Bowen, A-

He's added to his offensive game without adding FGA, but I'll be damned if he hasn't lost a quarter-step on defense.  Yeah, I said it.

Tim Duncan, B

Lowest, PPG, FG% and BPG of his career.  59% of his FGA are outside of the lane which is higher than Parker and Ginobili.  Still an incredible defensive anchor but, like last year, not capable of offensively carrying this team to a title.  His plantar fascia cost him a half-grade or so.

Tony Parker, A

Better shot selection this year and maybe the best guard finisher in the NBA (his eFG% inside is 71.1% compared to 55.3% for Wade, 52.3% for Bryant and 63.7% for LeBron).  Still has the undeniable Achilles heel to his game that will be exploited without mercy during the playoffs.