Takes Time: NBA basketball could be back by Christmas
Welcome to Takes Time, a recurring article type on The Strickland where a couple of Stricklandites will parse breaking news and rumors as they happen and offer some instant reaction hot takes in a Slack conversation style. In today’s edition, Alex Wolfe and Jeremy Cohen discuss what the NBA’s planned Christmas restart could mean for the league and the Knicks.
Alex Wolfe 3:13 PM
So Jeremy, have you seen this news about the new NBA season? I, uh, kinda can’t believe they’re trying to start around Christmas and fit 72 games in. Seems a little crazy for a league that A) only went 66 games starting on Christmas in 2011-12 after the lockout, B) has trended more and more towards load management since then, and C) just wrapped up the 2019-20 Finals, like, a week ago. How in the hell is this gonna work?
Jeremy 3:16 PM
It's a welcomed, albeit unexpected, surprise. I'm not sure how we went from "We could start in March to ensure fans are in attendance" to "Let's get 70-72 games in when another wave of coronavirus is expected to hit." We're now less than two months away from the season starting and a division rival of the Knicks doesn't even know where it will be playing half of its games!
Alex Wolfe 3:17 PM
Yeah, I think I just saw Steve Popper tweet saying that the Raptors could end up playing in New Jersey? Don’t the Nets already play there?
It just seems like a big ol’ mess to me, and it reeks of the owners putting the screws to the players. Think about the toll that the amount of back-to-back-to-backs took on players in the 2011-12 season. How exactly are they going to do when they have to have six more back-to-backs or back-to-back-to-backs inserted into this overly robust schedule? And right after 23 of the teams were playing as recently as four months before the start of the season, and some have had as little as two months? It just seems really anti-player to me, which makes me think the owners must have been threatening a prorated salary (AKA probably lockout) or something if the players didn’t agree.
Oh, and that doesn’t even address the prevailing issue here that you brought up, which is the fucking virus that the NBA just put on a masterclass in avoiding, yet now seems desperate to pull an NFL and have the league running rampant with cases in a matter of weeks.
Jeremy 3:22 PM
Billionaires doing something unethical? Whaaaaaaa?????
I do really like the idea of a series where travel is reduced. I am still concerned about how that impacts the health of players. We saw some incredibly unfortunate injuries in the bubble, and while some may chalk that up to "That's the risk you take by playing a contact sport," actual, qualified orthopedic doctors were interview pre-bubble to say the risk of injury is high. I even remember reading a study not too long ago that most ACL tears occur within the first quarter of the season. Have to think that's exacerbated by a condensed schedule.
What's more, the strike-shortened season and frequent back-to-backs were responsible for Derrick Rose's ACL tear. One injury led to another, which led to another, which led to another, which led to a torn ACL. And because you want your best players to play as many games as possible because your margin of error of making the playoffs and being seeded higher shrinks, the risk of injury goes up. The science isn't definitive enough to show a distinct difference between 32 and 37 minutes per game, but this will be a test for Tom Thibodeau. He will be under intense scrutiny if a Knick gets hurt, whether the criticism is fair or not.
And speaking of a lower margin for error, what does this mean for the Mavs' pick? The West is extremely crowded as is. More back-to-backs could mean fewer games featuring Kristaps Porzingis, which could lead to more losses, which hurts Dallas' chance of making the playoffs or being seeded higher. If my math's correct, and I think it is, a 70-game season would mean every game is equal to 1.17 games that would be played normally. What happens if KP misses 15 games? That's the equivalent of being out for more than one-fifth of the year and 17.5 games of a normal, 82-game season.
Alex Wolfe 4:13 PM
Yeah, it’s certainly a lot to think about, and it’s possible that the Mavs throw KP on a sort of Kawhi-esque maintenance plan where he’d play minimal (if any) back-to-backs, and certainly not any back-to-back-to-backs. (Side note: not looking forward to having to type back-to-back-to-back 1,000 times this season. Seriously, do it 10 times fast. Guess I should get used to it.)
As for Thibs and the Knicks, it will definitely be interesting to see if he lives up to all of his various interviews at the Sloan Conference and all that and actually takes player maintenance more into account this time around. His excuse in the past (and something I’ve heard from interviewing some people that knew his time on the Bulls and T-Wolves for Locked On Knicks) has been “Hey, I don’t force them to play 40 minutes, they’re totally down for it.” Even if that’s the case, Thibs has to start understanding that these guys are competitors, and none of them want to lose nor care about minutes load in a regular season game if they think they have a chance to win (except for the trailblazers like Kawhi, who probably has a Fitbit implanted in his wrist during the regular season that buzzes a shock collar on his coach when he gets over 35 minutes of playing time). It’s up to Thibs to make decisions for his players’ health, particularly in what will (apparently) be a much less shortened season than we thought.
I guess my last thought on this (since in theory this is supposed to be a quick reaction, and instead we’re writing a novel) is how does this news affect your opinion on what the Knicks should do this offseason? After learning that the NBA was considering waiting until as late as February to start the 2020-21 season, I figured it was a long shot they’d go any more than 45-50 games, tops. Because of that, I’d talked myself into the Knicks biting the bullet, playing the young guys a ton, and stinking it up for 45 games to try to get Cade Cunningham (or at least secure a top five-ish pick) in the 2021 draft.
Now, I’m not quite as sure… Do we really want to endure another stinker of a season? But on that note, do the Knicks even need to bring in some sort of vet presence (Chris Paul is the obvious subtext here) to make the team not a total slog to watch? Wouldn’t competent coaching, development, and rotations featuring RJ Barrett, Mitchell Robinson, Frank Ntilikina, Iggy Brazdeikis, Kevin Knox, Draft Picks X, Y, and Z, and, shit, even Dennis Smith Jr. make the season enjoyable enough, even if it’s closer to a normal 82-game slate than we thought it might be?
Jeremy 4:42 PM
I don’t think the plan changes at all for next season. On one hand, if there is a play-in tournament like there was in the bubble, your chances of making the playoffs could increase. That would be a feather in the cap for the front office, coaching staff, and personnel. On the other hand, if there’s a rise in division games as an effort to reduce travel, you’re probably going to get pummeled. Over the last five or so years, the highest a team with a bottom-three divisional record has finished in the NBA is eighth. New York had the third-worst division record in the league last year and finished sixth before the lottery. The other two teams, Golden State and Minnesota, both upgraded their rosters. It’s unlikely the Knicks significantly overhaul theirs to start winning games right now.
This is also likely a reason the Knicks don’t trade for Chris Paul. I think he’ll be traded to a playoff team because why spend what could potentially be his last All-NBA caliber year on a team that could be out of the playoff picture from the get-go if the start of the season features those pesky division matchups. Prominently playing the young guys, especially if you have a rookie ball-handler running the offense, is your best excuse for taking what is effectively a sabbatical. I can’t talk myself into Cade Cunningham, not because he isn’t an elite prospect (he most certainly is) but because I don’t want to deal with the odds of an 86+ percent chance of not drafting him. Assembling a team this year of high-motor players, while looking for smart ways to acquire future assets and putting your youth in a position to succeed, is all I want. The record and lottery will sort themselves out.
