[Senator Clay Davis]

The Celtics comparison is about how meaningless the regular season is and how, like the Celtics (and Raptors too in 2016), what the Rockets do in the regular season is fundamentally irrelevant. The difference between the quality of play and intensity of effort in playoff basketball versus regular season is far greater than in any other league, even hockey. Throw in a significant increase in physicality and the often questionable reffing to get desired results (hint: Cavs-Warriors IV is the NBA's preferred result), and it all becomes pretty easy to predict. The rare Mavericks NBA title is exactly that, a rare occurrence.

As to why watch? Because you like basketball and enjoy watching it? The last two seasons have been eight month coronations as we played out the string to get to Cavs-Warriors, and the season before that was the Cavs were going to play in the Finals against someone. Still got some drama in 2016 as the Warriors almost lost to the Thunder, then did lose to the Cavs. NBA is generally more top heavy than the other leagues, primarily because of superstars and refs. And basketball is probably the sport where in a seven game series the best team most often wins. There's no such thing as a goalie to steal a series, or a hot bat to steal a series.

The Rockets very well may shock the world, but having to rely on a trio of notorious playoff chokers in Chris Paul, James Harden and Mike D'Antoni doesn't really inspire a lot of confidence. And that has a lot to do with why most fans are still dismissing the Rockets as longshots.