The NBA's Year of the Lower Seed?

So far, yes. To win the championship? Lots of recent history says no

The Houston Rockets won the NBA championship in 1995 as a No. 6 seed.

The last 28 champions in #thisleague have all been seeded no lower than No. 3.

LA Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank cited this important statistic last week in a media session to wrap up the Clippers’ fourth successive disappointing finish in the Kawhi Leonard/Paul George era. Frank said it because he contends that the Clippers, who are associated with Load Management as much as any NBA franchise because of the consistently intermittent regular-season availability of Leonard and George across their four seasons together, have to “get back to honoring and respecting the regular season.”

But do they? Do they really have to?