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All season long, a full 82 games worth of basketball are played to determine essentially three key things. Who will be in the playoffs, who will play whom, and who will have the advantage of the home court during a specific series.

The theory is that the regular season separates the wheat from the chaff and provides the better teams a significant advantage come playoff time. Finish first and you not only have home court advantage throughout the conference playoffs, you have the good fortune to play the lowest seeded team in the conference in the first round. Of course, if you finish ninth or worst, well you just go home.

As that first round of playoff games reaches the midway point, the results have been striking. The general consensus of the higher seeds and the home court providing an advantage has simply not been apparent in either the Eastern of Western Conference.

In the East, the number one seeded Pistons and number two seeded Heat at least have utilized the home court advantage thus far with each team winning on its own turf. But the Pistons promptly dropped game three in Milwaukee while the Heat lost games three and four in Chicago. The Pistons have a chance this evening to make a statement and go up three to one in their series by winning game four in Milwaukee but the seventh seeded Bulls have everyone thinking that the Heat is now beatable. Certainly Miami looked slow and old in games three and four, a sign perhaps that the long NBA season was getting to them while the Bulls and their younger legs were looking stronger with each game. So much for the 82 game theory.

The third seeded Nets and fourth seeded Cavaliers both appear to have their hands full with the sixth seeded Pacers and fifth seeded Wizards respectively. Each series stands at two games apiece and each team is one and one on their home court. Despite the seeding, both of these series appear to be true toss ups at this point with any pair of the two teams emerging victorious.

It is easily conceivable that the Pistons, the number one seed could be joined in round two by the fifth seeded Wizards, sixth seeded Pacers and seventh seeded Bulls. Adding to that improbability is the fact that both the Pacers and the Bulls entered the playoffs having one just 50% of their games during the regular season.

Though things are strange in the East, it gets even more bizarre when we head West. First of all, like the Heat, the number one seeded Spurs have kept the home court advantage but then promptly lost games three and four to the eighth seeded Kings, allowing Sacramento to draw even on the series. Bad boy Ron Artest guaranteed a Kings victory in the matchup and after being suspended for game two for his game one conduct, one of the game's greatest competitors has led the Kings back from the brink of elimination. Still, everyone looks for the Spurs to close this out, just like everyone expects the Pistons, but no one expected this series to be two games apiece four games in.

Only the Mavericks seem to be in total control in round one when looking at all eight series. Dallas came back from a substantial deficit in game three to knock off the playoff-plagued Grizzlies, moving up three games to none. The results are a clear indication that Dallas is not really a fourth seed and the notion that they will have to potentially play the Spurs in round two continues to have everyone gasping.

From there, it gets totally improbable. The seventh seeded Lakers used a last minute game winner from Kobe Bryant to move into a three games to one lead over the number two ranked Suns. The Lakers stole game two in Phoenix, then held at home in games three and four. Perhaps most importantly for Kobe, the playoffs may be his final coming out, provided he could actually lead the Lakers deep into the playoffs.

At the same time as the Lakers have surprised the Suns, the sixth seeded Clippers are on the verge of ending their playoff futility, up three games to one against the third ranked Nuggets. The Clips have used balanced scoring to pave the way for their potential first round upset and the possibility that the teams with the two best records in the West could play in round two for the right to play the winner of the series between the sixth seeded Clippers and seventh seeded Lakers. At least LA would be buzzing with excitement.

The results of the series thus far have brought some real excitement to the NBA's second season. But if the leadership of the NBA is looking for regular season relevance, the early returns on the playoffs thus far are not helping convince anyone that the 82 game season has a whole lot of meaning at this time of the year.