OT: NBA about to approve plan to be back July 31
The NBA's Board of Governors has a 12:30 p.m. ET call on Thursday with the intention of approving the league's plan for a 22-team return in Orlando, sources told ESPN on Wednesday.
Each of the 22 teams will play eight regular-season games in Orlando for seeding purposes for the playoffs, sources told ESPN.
But why, though?
Look around you, man. This country is eating itself alive. Everything even remotely entertainment-related has come to a standstill due to COVID.
This country needs a distraction. It needs sports now in the worst possible way. Probably now more than ever in its entire history. Sports is about the only thing left I can think of that actually has a way to bring people of all genders, ethnic groups, and socioeconomic statuses of this country together for a singular cause.
So to answer your question of why, well, I'd say the better question is why not? Normally I don't care for the NBA. My ass will be watching these games when they happen. If for no other reason than I am so goddamn tired of my day being rife of nothing but politics, politics, politics.
Actually we could do humanity some good by keeping focus on the racism still persisting in this country. We need not be distracted, we need to make a lot of progress there. And to those sick and tired of "black lives matter"...too fucking bad, pick yourself up by the bootstraps and better yourself.
I'm not saying we don't keep the focus on systemic racism in this country. We absolutely should, and no, I'm not someone who's tired of "Black Lives Matter." But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be allowed to have some kind of outlet for all of us to go to outside the realm of current events. Sports really help in that regard. If nothing else, its a great stress reliever and a way to decompress at the end of the day, and maybe I'm one of those people who think sports are a great way to bring people of all backgrounds together.
So yeah, I'm not going to apologize to you, or anyone, for wanting sports back.
I have a feeling it has more to do with NBA owners, players and employees wanting to get paid again.
Lebron. That is why. Well that and the whole 'let's just hand the Lakers the title in honor of Kobe'.
You know it’s been an awful year when Kobe Bryant’s death and his daughter’s death feel like they happened twenty years ago. When in reality it’s only been a little over four months.
Actually, the word awful doesn’t even do justice to everything that’s happened.
As desperate as I am to actually watch some live sports (I actually watched the cornhole championship over the weekend!), I still will not waste my time to watch the NBA. I do enjoy seeing former Wolverines like Duncan or Trey do well, but I simply have no interest in watching professional basketball.
Cool!
Thanks for sharing!
But interested enough to tell everyone how uninterested you are.
Enjoy your cornhole athletes.
WTF 8 games, then the playoffs, end what.. 10/15ish just to start training camp a few weeks later? what's 20-21 going to look like?
Close, possible Finals game 7 on Oct. 12. Most likely late start to 20-21. They have been throwing around Christmas as a start date.
An "elephant in the room" as regards 2020-21 is the Olympics. The NBA would have to start the 2020-21 season later, but they may not be able to end it later - at least if they want the pros in Tokyo.
They should go back to the 1999 model and have a 50-game season starting in January.
Everything will be weird for the next year or two.
But enough about Tom Izzo's recruiting class, what about the NBA return?
I'm just happy we're getting something at all. Silver could've just said "fuck it we're shutting the whole season down."
Given the current state of affairs this country is in, I think we are all due for a distraction.
IF this happens, the 20-21 season is going to be a 60 game regular season, at best? Same as what I think the NHL 20-21 season looks like. Maybe even 45-50 games?
Jesus, what's with all the negative comments above me? I'm beyond thrilled for basketball to be back!!
They probably slowly stopped watching when Larry Bird stopped being the face of the league and were really scared away when players started doing offensive things like getting tattoos and having opinions, if I had to guess.
Hmmm.... I have zero interest in the NBA. I used to watch closely when the Pistons were good, but lost interest in the league as a whole when my local team started to suck. I always thought there was a cause and effect there, but you've helped me realize I have deeper issues. How should I think about the NHL? I used to be a fan, but I've had zero interest in that league as well ever since the Red Wings started to suck. Can you help me identify if that's due to racism as well? Thanks
You appear to just be a fair weather/bandwagon fan. No racism to be found. Don't pretend like "I just don't like professional basketball" isn't a dog whistle though. David Stern didn't institute the dress code and try to eradicate hip hop culture by accident.
What if the same guy says he really likes NCAA basketball but not the NBA? I ask because I've seen that sentiment numerous times on this board. Is that a dog whistle too?
I'd love to hear their reasoning on why, considering that the NBA is the same game but played at a higher skill level.
I prefer college in basically all sports. Basketball, football, and after last years run I prefer college baseball over MLB now too. Specifically for basketball, the regular season feels much more important and the post season is more exciting. Theres more of a connection to college teams than pro teams. The NBA has really always been about the assembly of super teams. For the vast majority of seasons you can pick out only 4 teams that have a shot at the title and usually predict the finals matchup after free agency.
Sounds like you should gamble on the NBA then. But to fair there's usually only 4-7 teams with a decent shot at the finals and every 3-4 years a surprise team breaks through. I think this year the 2 LA teams and The Bucks are heavy favorites but Houston, Toronto, and Boston have a punchers chance of breaking through to the finals. But even the favorites the Clips and the Bucks have either never made it to the finals or it's been over 4 decades so still pretty exciting to see if they can do it.
Nba is only good to watch come playoff time.
I can’t believe this got 5 likes. Bird was never the face of the league.
He absolutely was for a lot of white people in the 1980s. That was the entire subtext of Lakers vs. Celtics for so many back then.
So when Larry Bird won 3 MVP's in a row in the mid-80's he wasn't the face of the league?
Probably because they're no-fun guys.
About time somebody got this figured out. I'd much rather have NHL or MLB back but maybe this will get their asses in gear.
Very cool to hear this!
I think if any major sports league can restart and get through to a championship without another shutdown you would think it would be the NBA, given the smaller roster sizes.
Or baseball. They are already playing in Korea and Taiwan. Social distancing is not hard in baseball.
MLB has some issues between players and management regarding players pay for a shortened season.
I don't see MLB playing this year because of the financial issues between the Owners and PA. Neither seem to want to give much.
I wonder if this will lead to a permanent move to start the season later on. Having Christmas being opening day would be less competition with the NFL and would give them a bigger platform as the summer months move on with only regular season baseball going on. I hope they do. Spread out the sports, please.
Starting the NBA season on Christmas Day is such a great idea, and I've never understood why it hasn't happened yet.
My money is on this becoming permanent. All else equal, it would be nice to have NBA playoffs wrapping in late July/early August when baseball is hitting its dog days and we just have football training camp scraps.
They could have the draft right after and still have the sports spotlight before football kicks off
Would be great. And Christmas day games are already a tradition, would be a perfect fit for the season tip. And it'd also be good for the NCAA -- they'd get the basketball spotlight to themselves for the early season tournaments/non-conference matchups, and the post-season tournament wouldn't face any more competition than usual.
Sounds like our fantasy leagues are over.
I'm excited to see James Harden chucking up 3's again.
I sense the sarcasm. I’m sure you had no problem with Larry Bird chucking up 3s again.
Subtext aside, it's wild how few threes Bird et al. took. One of the things in the Jordan doc that jumped out is how terrible shot selection was in the 80s/90s. Like, teams would routinely run sets to generate 20-foot looks, and even dead-eye shooters would get up one or two threes a game.
Why not abbreviate the playoff schedule to best of 5 games or even best of 3 games? I don't think the TV contract will garner the the viewers they think. Just my opinion.
As the only American sport on TV? What do you think people are going to watch?
Have they made the decision on if the stats will accumulate for the regular season/career totals? I'm pretty sure the NHL said that the regular season was over and no stats will count towards season/career totals.
I'm a bit of a stat nerd and for some reason this is important to me...
I don't recall the NHL saying anything about the stats not counting. They played 3/4(?) of the season already. I would think they would definitely count towards career totals. Just a short season not unsimilar to a strike or lockout year.