Sometimes life, especially sports, rotates on a similar axis from year to year where we can compare different fads or eras.

In terms of the NBA playoffs, from the beginning of the playoffs and the first Walter A. Brown Trophy winner the Philadelphia Warriors in 1947, we get tired of seeing the same players and teams in the last series of the season.

From 1949-54, the Minneapolis Lakers won five out of six championships. The Syracuse Nationals won in 1955 after losing in 54 and the Warriors won again in 1956,

Before I even started giving examples, you knew the Boston Celtics were going to be mentioned as they won their first in 1957 and then won every year to 1969, except for 1958, which was won by the St. Lous Hawks but lost to the Celtics in three other finals, and 1967 which was won by Philadelphia, now the 76ers.

Along the way, the Lakers were in the finals seven times before Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain finally won in 1972 after Willis Reed and the New York Knicks won in 1970 and Lew Alcindor, better known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, won in 1971.

Knicks won again in 1973, Boston in 1976, and the Lakers in 1980.

There were some swerves in the middle, which happens occasionally as Rick Barry and the Golden State Warriors won in 1975, Bill Walton and the Portland Trail Blazers won in 1977, and the Seattle SuperSonics (no longer a team) won in 1979.

Then the “Showtime” Lakers thanks to Magic Johnson and Kareem, the Larry Bird Boston Celtics, and the Moses Malone and Dr. J (Julius Erving) 76ers won every championship from 1980 until 1989 when the “Bad Boy” Pistons won in 1989 and 1990.

All of us sports fans know what the Chicago Bulls did in the 1990s with two three-peats surrounding Hakeem Olajuwon dreaming his Houston Rockets to two rings.

Then the San Antonio Spurs and the Lakers (a three-peat) won the next five before an actual team in the 2004 Pistons were victorious. Then the Spurs exchanged with the Heat and the Celtics before the Lakers won two more.

Dallas Mavericks snuck past the Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, Chris Bosh Miami Heat, but they were in four consecutive finals winning two.

Spurs win again and then the “Splash Brothers” Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, along with my least favorite NBA player of all time, Draymond Green, were in the next five finals, winning three with loses to James and the Cleveland Cavaliers and Kawhi Leonard and the Toronto Raptors (talk about a surprise).

Lakers win in the bubble, Giannis Antetokounmpo gives the Bucks their first ring since 1971 in 2021, Steph wins again in 2022, Nikola Jokic takes the Denver Nuggets to unchartered territory in 1013, and the Boston Celtics win yet another banner last year thanks to Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.

I wasn’t originally going to go down the entire NBA Championship list, found on Wikipedia, NBA.com, or a number of other sites, but it helps prove my point and why the NBA playoffs are so interesting,

There seems to be a been there done that, the same teams or the same players are in the NBA finals year after year…with, again, a few expectations.

This year, the playing legends, who are first-ballot, no-doubt-about-it hall of famers, all of them are already eliminated, in the first round, except one…Curry.

The Lakers are eliminated taking out James. The Suns never made it to the playoffs, Kevin Durrant (who won two NBA Finals MVPs with the Warriors in 2017 and 2018) gone. The Bucks bowed out, Antetokounmpo is gone. Kawhi Leonard and James Harden (who plays great until the playoffs) are gone thanks to the Nuggets.

This means seven out of the remaining eight teams have either never won a title in general or with any of current players on its roster – Oklahoma City Thunder, Minnesota Timberwolves, Cleveland Cavaliers, Indiana Pacers, and the New York Knicks – or have only won one with their superstars still in their prime – Denver Nuggets and the Boston Celtics.

What a breath of fresh air.

We get to see fresh faces past the first round, or we get to see if players and teams can live up to their hype and do it again.

Taytum receives zero respect from fans. But will he finally get it if the Celtics win again?

Jokic should be the regular season NBA MVP but he’s not going to be because of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Can he continue to average a triple-double and get back into the finals?

And although the Warriors (No. 7 in the west, the worst seed still alive) are the old dogs, what happens if the partnering of Jimmy Butler with Curry and Green actually wins the Warriors yet another championship?

The drama and intrigue for the rest of the NBA Playoffs is more exciting than any TNT or TBS network lineup.

I know I’m tuned in.