It seems ridiculous that a team projected to finish with 33 wins could somehow make the playoffs over a team that is projected to finish with 47 wins. Is the play-in tournament functioning as intended?

I'll preface this by saying that I know the play-in tournament isn't going anywhere.

538 projects the 7th seed in the Western Conference this season to finish 47-35. They also project the 10th seed to finish 33-49. People might see my flair and think, "well of course a Timberwolves fan is complaining about this", which is fair, as the Timberwolves have a lot to lose by being in the 7th seed.

But abstracting from teams involved, in principle, it seems ridiculous that a team that finishes with 33 wins could somehow make the playoffs over a team that has 47 wins.

I think the thing that I disagree with is that we're distilling a team's season-long body of work down to a single game.

I'll just use the projected seeds this season as an example. The Timberwolves are currently 41-30. They have 8th best net rating this season with the #6 offense and #10 defense. They're projected to win 47 games and have already won EIGHT more games than the 10th seed is projected to win the entire season.

In a 7-game series, the "better" team (however you might define the word better) is likely going to win. But there is so much more volatility game-by-game when looking at a single game. On paper, the Timberwolves should absolutely beat a team like the Lakers or Pelicans to secure a playoff bid. In a single game, anything can happen; even the worst teams in the NBA will win ~20 games a season, yet they're projected to lose almost every single individual game that they play the entire season.

It seems ridiculous that we are giving teams like the Timberwolves (or even the Cavs in the East, to a lesser extent) that are having objectively very good seasons and have earned the right to be in the playoffs such a small margin for error to actually secure a playoff spot. The Timberwolves are in a completely different tier of team in terms of quality and season-long performance than the teams in the running for the 9th and 10th seeds.

This will probably come off to some as just a Twolves fan complaining, but again, I think just in principle, ignoring the specific teams, we are talking about the possibility of a 32 or 33 win team making the playoffs while a team that could have as many as 46 or 47 wins could miss it, because of a single game. It just doesn't seem right. A team with 47 wins should not have to worry about not making the playoffs while their potential competition only has 32 or 33 wins.