Fill-in players helped NBA remain on track

EDITOR’S NOTE: Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night was not complete in time for this edition. For coverage, please visit timesfreepress.com.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver was on his phone constantly in late December. At that time, the league had more than 100 players sidelined for reasons related to the coronavirus, along with some head coaches, assistant coaches, other team staff members and referees.

The NHL had just paused its season on the ice. Silver wondered if his league would follow suit on the court.

“I was very concerned,” Silver said. “And we had numerous discussions with our governors about whether we were doing the right thing.”

With a lot of help from dozens of newly signed players, some of whom might already be forgotten, the NBA played on.

It could be argued the untold MVPs of this season are the more than 100 players signed to short-term hardship contracts to fill in when almost every team was decimated by the Omicron variant and other virus issues in December and January.

Those fill-ins kept the season from veering off the rails. And they’re really why the NBA Finals matchup between the Boston Celtics and the Golden State Warriors is being played exactly as planned when the schedule was being put together last summer.

“I think that everyone understood that if we did have to pause the season, it would have a huge potential economic impact on the league as well or force players and the league to have to move into the summer, which is not ideal,” Silver told The Associated Press. “So without those players, we wouldn’t be here today.”

Around the league, 605 players — a record — got into at least one game during the regular season, up 12% from last season. There were 633 players who were known to

be under contract at some point, up 15% from last season’s figure.

And when the variant was at its worst, the league was at its busiest: During a 10-day span in late December, 93 unique 10-day contracts were signed.

“Strangest season I’ve been a part of so far,” Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James said during the regular season, his 19th in the league. “I don’t want to just talk about the injuries but COVID protocols. You have guys go out for false positives. You have had guys go out for real reasons. … We’ve had a little bit of everything.”

To put into perspective how many players were needed, consider that in a five-season span — 198283 through 1986-87 — the Celtics used a total of 27 players. This season they used 28, and that doesn’t count four who were signed and never got into a game. The Celtics’ total of 32 players who were under contract — some very briefly — at some point this season was the highest in the NBA, one more than the Portland Trail Blazers and two more than the Indiana Pacers, Milwaukee Bucks and New Orleans Pelicans.

“Obviously to play basketball during unprecedented times the last two years has been tough for individuals, families, et cetera,” Boston guard Jaylen Brown said. “But I think the NBA and the players association have done as good a job as possible to keep things going and to accommodate everything as best they possibly can. There’s been ups and downs. There’s been questions, things that haven’t made sense. But I still give credit where credit is due.”

The NBA had to postpone 11 games that were originally slated from mid-to-late December, and the rescheduling of those forced eight other games to be shifted in order to keep teams from playing in overly adverse circumstances such as having three games in three nights.

Otherwise, games were played like normal. Only it wasn’t normal.

Former NBA All-Stars such as Joe Johnson — who made his only shot in his one-game appearance with the Celtics — were called back to the league to help offset the depletions. The Washington Wizards signed center Jaime Echenique, who played three unremarkable minutes with no stats of any sort but made history by becoming the first Colombian to appear in an NBA game.

“If I’m dreaming, don’t wake me up,” Echenique said.

Two years after the NBA was at the leading edge of the wave of sports shutting down as the pandemic hit the United States in earnest — ultimately, the 2019-20 schedule was shortened and completed at a neutral site — players such as Echenique kept the 202122 season going.

Silver noted that Phoenix Suns guard Chris Paul, a league veteran and a former president of the players’ union, said during a meeting that the fill-ins were owed “an incredible debt of gratitude.”

“And he even was reminding other NBA players, ‘Don’t forget to thank those players,’” Silver added. “We were relying on a terrific group of outside advisors made up of top doctors and scientists who were predicting that if we could tough it out for a few weeks, we’d be able to make it through.

“But without the service, largely of those G League players, we wouldn’t have been able to do it.”*