Larry Brown, who coached 26 NBA seasons with a variety of teams, recently said that this year’s college squad from Kentucky could make the playoffs in the Eastern Conference.
The notion is preposterous, mainly because the size, strength, age of players and depth of talent on NBA rosters would all be working against a college squad, as would the long grind of the 82-game regular season schedule.
Deron Williams is among the professional players who was recently willing to go on record saying as much.
From Mitch Abramson of the New York Daily News:The Kentucky Wildcats certainly won’t be in the playoffs, and Deron Williams thinks the idea that UK would make the playoffs in the NBA’s weak Eastern Conference is “ridiculous” and “crazy.”
But he wasn’t done there. ...
“That’s very ridiculous,” Williams said on the heels of ex-Knicks coach Larry Brown’s statement that the Wildcats would win in the NBA. “The Cavs had three No. 1 picks last year (actually two), and they didn’t make the playoffs. It sounds good. Could they win a game at some point in the season? Yeah. I’m saying they could probably win a game. Maybe. Once, twice.” ...
“There’s no way. I wish they would come in here,” Williams said of facing the Wildcats in the NBA. “They’re really good. They are really good. Don’t let me take anything away from them. But that’s just crazy. When you have a team full of 18-, 19-year-olds it’s just completely different. You’re going to catch a team tired one night, on a back-to-back, four games in five nights, then they could give them a run. But making the East? Making the playoffs? Playoffs!?”
Over the course of the entire season, it’s possible that Kentucky could notch a win or two, for a variety of reasons, under a very specific set of circumstances.
But winning enough games to make the playoffs -- even in the East -- is indeed too tall a task for even the greatest of college teams. And Williams realizes that.