With the United States experiencing record unemployment and most of daily life has come to a halt or at the very least transferred to the virtual realm, the National Basketball Association remains hopeful that they can do something to crown a 2020 NBA Champion. However, the league is pretty clear across the board that nothing resembling an NBA postseason will be able to happen, even if conditions greatly improve during the coronavirus.
The best-case scenario is a one-location, tournament-type event that crowns a champion in Las Vegas, according to Sports Illustrated’s Chris Mannix.
The spread of COVID-19 would have to dip significantly in the coming months, or the NBA will be accused of prioritizing profits over safety. Said a high ranking team executive from a playoff team, “We all want to play. But we all know we can’t play until things are dramatically different.”
So even if hospitals get the proper amounts of masks and ventilators and tests, and the population at large takes social distancing seriously to slow the spread of coronavirus, the playoffs as we were expecting them will not happen. And there’s still a good chance that nothing happens at all and the season gets canceled in the way that college sports have been. That’s been made even more clear by moves by cities like Toronto, home of the defending NBA Champions, which banned public gatherings of people until July 1. Wimbledon, the iconic summer tennis tournament in London, was also canceled earlier this week.
Still, even an event at a central location, as Wimbledon is, with significantly fewer participants than a potential NBA tournament, would be quite complicated. The NBA tends to fly in their personnel to playoff sites from all over the country, meaning that not only would the players have to be tested and quarantine, so would any of the working staff who are taking care of the clock, gathering quotes or keeping score. That type of expenditure may prove to be too much, but the NBA is a multi-billion dollar business and it’s unlikely they will spare any expense in making sure they’re still worth it.
LeBron James has already declared that he has no interest in playing in such a scenario, both without fans and having to live quarantined in a hotel away from his family. But if that’s the only way to finish the season, that will be LeBron’s only opportunity, as well as that of every other team in the playoff picture, to claim the 2020 championship. And perhaps more importantly to the rest of the league, another opportunity to cash some portion of their paychecks for the rest of the season.
[lawrence-related id=28840,28816]