NBA Horse Duck?
In 2007, multihyphenate uber-columnist Bill Simmons created the idea for the Entertaining-as-Hell Tournament as a way to keep the fans of the bottom half of the NBA engaged; the tourney would allow lesser teams to find a way into the playoffs when their seasons would otherwise be in the dumpster by January. Sound familiar? It should—the Play-In Tournament borrows heavily from Bill’s idea.
In 2023, Adam Silver finally saw his idea for the In-Season Tournament come to fruition, as a way to keep Lakers fans engaged for about two weeks in the middle of December.
In 2024, I hit the lottery and found a way to fund my own tournament. I give you the Horse Duck.
Would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses? Great thinkers since the time of Socrates have posed this question (citation needed), and we’re no closer to having a definitive answer. Science (and its good friend Morality) has yet to create the conditions necessary to find a solution, but we can do the next-best thing: create a new NBA tournament that gets us as close as possible to answering the question without having to conjure up any affronts to God and mankind.
In a single-game setting, would you bet on the best team over the course of a full season, or an all-star team made up of the lesser teams in the league? Thankfully, after all my lotto numbers hit, I’m in a position to offer the Association and its players enough money to make the Horse Duck a reality. (By the way, the whole thing [idea, tournament, trophy] is called the Horse Duck—no hyphens, no guessing which words to capitalize. If Kawhi Leonard’s manages to win it, though, and he wants to start calling it the H Duck, I’m not stopping him.)
The entire Horse Duck is seven games, played over the course of a week after the regular season had concluded. I’m giving the league enough money to cut four games out of the regular season schedule by dropping a few back-to-backs (the elser statesmen of the NBPA are already thanking me). I’m also borrowing from the rules incentivizing player participation for end-of-season awards. Want to skip a game or two of the Horse Duck? Fine, but you’re sitting out a game of your first-round series for every game you miss here.
You’re wondering how the teams are assembled at this point, aren’t you? And why this is happening right after the regular season ends? Simple—the rosters are based on the standings at the end of the year. The team with the best record in each conference is the Big Horse—they’ll head into the tourney as a team, with their own coach and a year of continuity behind them. The next three teams are made up of players from seeds 2-3, 4-7, and 8-15, led by the coach of the top seed of each team. The Big Horse plays the Ducklings (8-15) in the first round, with Daffy (2-3) and Donald (4-7) as the other first-round matchup. (Did I mention we have enough money to get the rights to both Daffy and Donald Duck? Think of the merch!) The winners of those games meet in the conference finals, and everything culminates with the Horse Duck, two days before the Play-In Tournament begins, and we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming.
The easiest way to see this in practice is to look at what this year’s Horse Duck would’ve looked like, complete with predictions of winners, losers, and all the unintentional comedy that’s along for the ride. We like to comfort the afflicted and to afflict Draymond Green around here, so that’s definitely on the agenda. To keep things simple in choosing the rosters, the 2-3 teams each get eight players; the 4-7 each get four, and the 8-15 each get two. Let’s look at who they’ve chosen, and by they, I mean me.
East
Big Horse - Boston
Daffy - NY/Mil
Hart, Brunson, Anunoby, DiVincenzo, McBride, Hartenstein, Robinson, Achiuwa, Giannis, Middleton, Beverly, Lillard, Lopez, Portis, Connaughton, Beasley
Donald - Cle/Orl/Ind/Phi
Mitchell, Garland, Mobley, Allen, Banchero, Suggs, F Wagner, M Wagner, Tyrese, Siakam, Turner, Nembhard, Embiid, Maxey, Lowry, Batum
Ducklings - Mia/Chi/Atl/Bkn/Tor/Cha/Wsh/Det
Butler, Bam, DeRozan, Caruso, Trae, Murray, Bridges, Cam Thomas, LaMelo, Brandon Miller, Poole, Kuzma, Cunningham, Ivey
West
Big Horse - OkC
Daffy - Den/Min
Jokic, Murray, Gordon, Porter, KCP, Braun, Watson, Jackson, Edwards, Gobert, KAT, Conley, McDaniels, Reid, Anderson, Alexander-Walker
Donald - LAC/Dal/Phx/LAL
Kawhi, PG, Harden, Westbrook, Luka, Kyrie, Washington, Lively, KD, Booker, Beal, Nurkic, LeBron, AD, Reaves, Hachimura
Ducklings - NO/Sac/GS/Hou/Utah/Mem/SA/Por
Zion, Ingram, Fox, Sabonis, Steph, Klay, Sengun, Green, Lauri, Sexton, JJJ, Aldama, Wemby, Vassell, Simons, Grant
A few things to note here before we look at the predictions of how all this plays out:
—The advantage of being the Big Horse becomes evident early on. They’ve played together all year, and they’re competing against hastily thrown together pseudo-All Star teams. Since the rosters are based on the final standings, the teams won’t be set until the season wraps up. Boston’s huge lead in the East guaranteed their Big Horse Status early on, while the Thunder, Nuggets, and Timberwolves would have fought it out til the end.
—Daffy and Donald both feature rosters with soon-to-be competitors acting as teammates. The 4/5 matchup in each conference (Cleveland/Orlando and LAC/Dallas) sees their forces join up on Donald, and the potential 2/3 matchup in the second round is wholly represented by Daffy. Do the coaches of these teams gain an advantage going into the playoffs? Of course they do—it’s another reason to love the intrigue of the Horse Duck!
—The Ducklings only get two players per team. For some bottom dwellers, it’s gonna be tricky to have two good, healthy representatives on there (hello Jordan Poole!). For others, we’re also definitely paying to have cameras in the locker rooms when players are told they didn’t make the cut (we’re looking at you, Dray and Dillon). The good news is the prize pool is split evenly among all of the players represented by their choices, *provided that they attend the games and agree to be mic’ed up.* I want to hear Chris Paul complaining that he was left off for Klay. Same with D’Angelo Russell and Rui Hachimura.
All set? Let’s get to the games!
East 1st Round
Big Horse vs. Ducklings
Erik Spoelstra is coaching the Ducklings, so Jimmy and Bam are starting, regardless of Jimmy’s health. In an attempt to curry favor with the next round of free agents and trade candidates, Spo puts Trae, DeRozan, and Mikal Bridges. Looking at the rest of his roster, there aren’t a lot of other good options. Boston gets a good warm-up game in, while Bam spends most of the game keeping Jimmy from actively murdering Trae for going 7-of-28 from deep. Yikes.
Big Horse 128, Ducklings 93
Daffy vs. Donald
Does it matter that Giannis is hurt coming into this game and might not play? Not really—Thibs plays his guys, which means the only Milwaukee players seeing action in this game are Bobby Portis and Pat Beverly (Pat Bev is a Thibs guy, unofficially or otherwise). Daffy uglies it up for Donalds guards, and Joel Embiid gets a sneak preview of what he’s in for in the first round of the playoffs.
Daffy 102, Donald 89
West 1st Round
Big Horse vs. Ducklings
Our first upset alert! Having Steph, Zion, and Wemby all on one team throws all of the history, what-ifs, and future of the NBA into a blender with the dial turned up to crazy. Wemby needs a point guard and a floor spacer? Done! Zion gets to play with a generational rim protector? Double done! Watch the Ducklings go big with Sabonis and Lauri for a stretch, then go even bigger with JJJ and Wemby daring SGA to come into the paint. Oklahoma City makes adjustments over the course of a seven-game series, but the Duckings do enough here to pull out the win.
Ducklings 119, Big Horse 112
Daffy vs. Donald
The final game of the first round is the one we’ve been waiting for. Look at the staring fives here. Daffy is running out Jokic, Murray, Ant, KAT, and Gobert; Donald has any five of Kawhi, PG, Harden, Luka, Kyrie, KD, Booker, Beal, LeBron, and AD at its disposal (apologies, Russ). Are there too many cooks in Donald’s kitchen? Their intrasquad scrimmage might be the most entertaining part of the whole tournament. Jokic makes average teammates better. Jokic throwing lobs to Gobert and kicking it out to certified marksmen? Unstoppable.
Daffy 128, Donald 113
East Finals
Big Horse vs. Daffy
In some years, there’s a big old stallion stomping around the yard, tearing up grass, doing whatever it wants. Even with a healthy Giannis, Boston has too many horseshoes to go around.
Big Horse 131, Daffy 112.
West Finals
Ducklings vs. Daffy
The Ducklings caught a great matchup in the first round against Oklahoma City, but their size advantage goes poof here. Give Wemby a few years and a few Whoppers, and he’ll be his own Horse Duck, but for now he gets bounced around and bounced out by the big boys.
Daffy 123, Ducklings 107
The Horse Duck
Big Horse vs. Daffy
The true awesomeness of Boston’s season shines right here. Team Daffy is running out an all-star starting five for the final, which the Celtics have basically been doing all season. (Remember in 2015 when Atlanta had four players make the All-Star Team? Would they stay within 20 points of Boston this year?)
All that said, this is Jayson Tatum in a pseudo-playoff game. And the Joker at his peak. And Champagne Supernova Anthony Edwards (gonna start throwing ludicrous nicknames at him until something sticks). The benches start coming into play after a week of games. Aaron Gordon, Michael Porter Jr., Mike Conley, Naz Reid, and Jaden McDaniels have been giving Daffy’s starters fits during their hastily-assembled scrimmages, and they’ll do the same to Al Horford and Sam Hauser here.
Daffy 138, Big Horse 129
There you have it. Even the biggest horse (or giant duck) can be taken down, provided you have the best player on the planet and Kevorka Edwards (I liked Champagne Supernova better) on your team. Horse Duck is dead. Long live Horse Duck.
