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Are you ready to play basketball?
He left for a minute … seriously.
Just over two months after the confetti fell into an empty arena to celebrate the Lakers championship, the NBA will return to the court. On Thursday, the NBA players union tentatively approved a start date for Dec. 22, paving the way for a 72-game season, and the shortest offseason in NBA history.
Those surprised that this proposal effortlessly navigated through the union ranks need only point to public comment. From Michele Roberts, who for months suggested Y and others that a restart in 2020 was unlikely. For Danny Green, the Lakers guard who scoffed at the idea of restarting the season in December, suggesting that his teammate, LeBron James, would sit through January.
Those who aren’t surprised are pointing to one variable: money, hundreds of millions of dollars, that the league says it will lose if the season is delayed for another month. The NBA took an optimistic tone about the possibility of taking fans to stadiums next season, citing a vaccine and the development of rapid tests. They’re also not where the NBA, and no one really expected to be, which for the league meant prioritizing television revenues. To do that, the season had to be as long as possible.
There are other variables, of course. The NBA desperately wants to get off the court in mid-July, in part to avoid competing with the Olympics, in part to return to the traditional October-June schedule for the 2021-22 season. This accomplishes that. In the approved proposal, the regular season will end in mid-May and the Finals will run only until the third week of July. The league also needs to take as long as possible to account for the inevitable need to reschedule games that are affected by the coronavirus.
But really, it’s about the money. Their always about money.
This solution is unfair to the Lakers, a team with many veterans that will have six weeks off before training camps open in early December. (I’d say it was unfair to the Heat, but Miami strikes me as the kind of team that had mini-camps before Halloween.) The Lakers spent 3 and a half months locked in the NBA bubble. It was stressful, both on and off the court. They deserve a longer break.
But this is not about the Lakers. Or the Heat. Or the Celtics or the Nuggets, whose seasons ended in late September. For many teams, this offseason has been endlessly long. Eight teams have been out since March. Six others saw their seasons end at the end of July. Eight more were made in early September. The Lakers are the most powerful team in the NBA, with LeBron their most powerful player. But the figures to advance the beginning of January do not add up.
What’s interesting is not that the NBA is rushing back. Their how the league will return. The bubble was a challenge. It was also a resounding success. No player tested positive for COVID-19. No games were interrupted for health reasons. The weather was muggy, the food questionable, and you can only play so many pickleball games. But it worked. Returning to one venue for a full season was unrealistic, the union would never accept it, but there were conversations on GM’s calls about regional bubbles that would quarantine teams for a month at a time.
The NBA is not doing that. They’re going to play in the market, where the Raptors, who, like baseball’s Blue Jays, will have trouble getting Canada to approve the restart in Toronto, will play in the air, in empty spots (sort of). The idea is that some states (Texas, Florida) will open indoor venues more quickly than others, offering a potentially valuable new source of income.
But there are risks with that. Big risks. The NBA will cut back on travel next season, but teams will continue to travel across the country for most of the eight months. It’s eight months on airplanes … on buses … in hotel rooms … in stadiums. They will be asked to stay indoors, to avoid restaurants, bars, and public places. That won’t be easy for a league of twentysomethings.
They will try all this with the pandemic stronger than ever. More than 120,000 coronavirus cases were reported Thursday, a record in the United States. It is the first time that the country exceeds 110,000 in one day. The growth of cases is growing exponentially. Hospitalizations have increased. The death toll continues to rise. We are not, in any way, shape or form, turning the corner. And the holidays threaten to make things significantly worse.
The NBA will try to come back in the middle of that, which raises all kinds of problems. Infections between players, coaches or employees are not only possible, but probable. Will the league postpone matches with a single infection? And the facilities? The NFL has navigated coronavirus problems well, but plays weekly, with limited travel. MLB ended its season, but baseball is a game played on social distance. COVID-19 could spread rapidly between NBA players in close contact. It was starting to fall back in March before the league closed.
The NBA will be ready, of course. The league and union have worked seamlessly to resolve many key issues – that the NBA and the union were able to reach a tentative agreement so quickly is remarkable and a testament to the strength of the relationship, so expect there to be plans for established contingencies. One of them should be a bubble, which may be the only way to guarantee a credibly completed season.
So welcome back, NBA.
Not that we had a lot of time to miss you.
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