The skimming of the playoffs, however exciting and spectacular, has certainly not given particularly surprising results: in the end, the four teams finished respectively first and second in their groupings will play the NBA conference finals.
And so Miami, which so far in the knockout phase has lost only one match, will visit Indiana in the first two games and for the eventual "beautiful" of the series in the best of 7 games. Paradoxically, bad news for the gialloneri, who have suffered four of the five defeats of these playoffs right on their bewitched home parquet. San Antonio on the other hand, which had suffered against Dallas in the first round, quickly liquidated Portland and is now waiting for the Oklahoma City Thunder after six games of pure battle against the LA Clippers, in what was certainly the most balanced match on paper in the second round of playoffs.
So are we heading towards an encore of last year's Heat-Spurs final, won by Miami? It is not certain, and above all it is not certain that the Rossoneri will still emerge, given that San Antonio will always and in any case have the advantage of the field while the same cannot be said of the reigning champions, who on the contrary against all three opponents of the semifinal and eventual final will always play the decisive matches away from the American Airlines Arena.
Of course, at the moment, there is only that this will have been the NBA season "for the poor". Yes, because according to the ranking drawn up by Forbes, the team with the most value of the four is precisely Miami, in some ways the favorite of the tournament but only seventh out of 30 franchises with a valuation of 770 million dollars, just over half of the New York Knicks , first with 1,4 billion and with a turnover of 287 million, revenues of almost 100 million in the last year and above all unique with a debt/GDP ratio of 0%, despite the playoffs not even reached and a title that has been missing since 1973 .
The second most valued team also remained outside the playoffs, those Los Angeles Lakers stumbled into one of the blackest seasons in recent history but still in first place in terms of turnover (295 million). And to testify that business does not always pay off in the field, indeed, is the ranking of the other three conference finalists. The Spurs, four titles in the last 15 years, are "only" tenth with 660 million, surpassing their next rivals from Oklahoma with 590, both with revenues that are just over a third of that of the Knicks.
Finally there is the Indian Cinderella, who almost plays the role of the little match girl: according to Forbes, Paul George and partners are worth 475 million dollars, 22nd out of 30 teams (the last is Milwaukee with 405), and earn just 11 million, leaving behind almost only loss-making franchises. In the meantime, however, they launch the challenge in Miami, already beaten in the season.
