3rd seed that catches lucky match-up breaks and gets murdered in the conference finals is the absolute one in a million ceiling.

In this world, the Clippers do not care about seeding and have load managed to the 4th seed. We have outperformed the Blazers and Spurs convincingly. The Harden-Westbrook Rockets are a disaster. The Lakers go through serious growing pains. The Warriors stealth tank. And no other fringe 8 seed team lives their best life.

Maybe something like

1. Jazz

2. Nuggets

3. Pelicans

4. Clippers

5. Lakers

6. Blazers

7. Spurs

8. Rockets

We get to face the Blazers and Nuggets before the Clippers mow us down in 4. I think this could plausibly happen if you simulated the season, not even a million, but like 25,000 times lol