NBA can’t please everyone
The words not only captured the brutal honesty from an NBA superstar. They also reflected what other players might feel about resuming the NBA season.
“If we come back and they’re just like, ‘We’re adding a few games to finish the regular season,’ and they’re throwing us out there for meaningless games and we don’t have a true opportunity to get into the playoffs,” Portland’s Damian Lillard told Yahoo! Sports on Tuesday, “I’m going to be with my team because I’m a part of the team. But I’m not going to be participating.”
That sentiment captures the challenge the NBA faces in figuring out the perfect format to resume the season. It must weigh safety concerns after suspending operations over two months ago because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
It must also calculate the best format to give teams the fairest shot to win an NBA championship.
Should the NBA resume the regular season, the league could recoup some of the financial losses it has suffered by broadcasting those games on ABC and ESPN. But that approach could also expose bad basketball, forcing non-contending teams to play through both rustiness and apathy.
“If we can come back and play, that’s a positive for our young guys,” one NBA executive on a non-contending team told USA TODAY Sports on Tuesday. The executive spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the topic. “Our guys want to play. They’re trying to make a mark in the league. To some extent, they’re also bored and want to get out of the house. But my concern is if they don’t have a season, how do we get our guys motivated?”
Should the NBA jump straight to the playoffs, the league could bring immediate excitement and meaning to a restless fanbase that has not seen a live professional basketball game since March 11. But that could also leave playoff-bubble teams feeling left out, including the Trail Blazers (29-37), New Orleans Pelicans (28-36) and Sacramento Kings (28-36).
If the NBA adopts a play-in tournament to settle the bottom of the playoff standings, it could placate teams that are narrowly out of the postseason picture. But that may frustrate others that did not have as much of a chance to recapture rhythm and chemistry as they would during a normal regular season.
“If they come back and say it’s something like a tournament, play-in style, between the No. 7 and No. 12 seeds, if we’re playing for playoff spots, then I think that’s perfect,” Lillard told Yahoo! Sports.
The NBA will soon find out what other players and executives think. The league has yet to see final results of a survey it sent to general managers last Friday, according to one person familiar with the results who spoke with USA TODAY Sports on condition of anonymity, because the person was not authorized to publicly discuss the topic. When the NBA hosts a Board of Governors meeting Friday, the person said the league plans “to present a few options” and “get the format figured out as quickly as we can.”
It is possible the NBA may need more follow-up meetings to iron out various logistics, yet the league is aware it needs to act quickly in order to resume its season in late July.
The NBA is exploring a plan to have all games take place at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando.
But even if that gets settled, plenty of questions remain to ensure a fair and safe return.
Would it be in the league’s interest to allow NBA lottery-bound teams to skip the season to minimize travel and the number of teams in the bubble? Or would that eliminate too many games that would significantly affect the league’s revenue and future salary cap?
Would it be in the league’s interest to introduce a play-in tournament both to entice better competition and to test a new model for future seasons? Or would that only complicate adjustments in resuming the season at a bubble site without fans?
Would it be in the league’s interest to jump into the playoffs following a presumed minicamp to ease scheduling and safety concerns?
Or would that leave non-contending teams bitter?
How the NBA and its players union reach a decision might reveal how they are balancing safety, the league’s finances and the quality of product. The complicated thing: those goals are not necessarily mutually exclusive.