Indeed, they might use different strategies. Like letting one team win for their own advantage.
Strengths and weaknesses will be seen or how many wins they made during the season against the team they will let to get the 8th spot.
That's true, some teams simply fits you more than the others, due various reasons. It is kinda risky though, to try get the team you have good score against. Maybe weaker teams will try to do something like that, but not the top ones like Lakers, Clippers and Bucks.
By the way, on this day 27 years ago, Drazen Petrovic died in a tragic car accident. He was the first big Euro star in NBA and by many best Euro player ever. In his last season (1992-1993) he was averaging 22.3 pts, on 52/45/87 shooting, and I am sure that in the next season he would entered that prestigious 50/40/90 club. No Euro player before him had such numbers back in those days, when NBA generally considered players from Europe as 2nd rate players, not giving them any freedom. Younger NBA fans probably never heared about him, but this is what Reggie Miller had to say when they asked him about best shooters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7AhrUIc87oDespite having some very talented players like Kukoc and Radja, our (Croatian) national basketball team never recovered from his death, as he was was our captain and leader. If there was ever European basketball player that could be compared to MJ based on his main traits (competitiveness, leadership and work ethic) that would be Drazen.
