League glad to see the end of a dread October
The Golden State Warriors really wanted to believe that things were dribbling back to normalcy.
After a comfortable victory last Monday in New Orleans over the Pelicans in which they never trailed and Draymond Green recorded a triple-double, Stephen Curry was the last Warrior to depart the visitors’ locker room — as usual.
The Pelicans had placed in Curry’s stall an oversize bag of popcorn, his favourite snack, as they always do. When Curry finally sauntered toward the exit, Ralph Walker, his longtime security attaché, dutifully toted the bag onto the team bus for a triumphant Curry and Co. to enjoy on the flight back to the Bay Area. Less than 48 hours later, of course, Golden State was plunged right back into early-season despair with the news that Curry would be out for three months after breaking his hand.
It turns out that not even the Warriors — not even after five consecutive trips to the NBA Finals — were safe from getting ensnared in the swirl of gloom that so regularly infringed upon the league throughout the month of October.
This is supposed to be a season of bountiful promise and intrigue after the most frantic offseason in NBA history in terms of marquee players switching teams. Instead, we’ve been treated to a succession of sombre headlines and dour debate topics that, for #thisleague, turned Halloween into a celebration of October’s passing as much as anything.
The NBA’s ongoing China conflict, and uncertainty about how to navigate the tricky nexus of sports, politics and human rights amid fears of significant revenue losses, remains the foremost culprit. Zion Williamson’s knee surgery before his first official game as a pro was an even more tangible downer after his tremendous pre-season for New Orleans. A shocking 0-5 start for the Sacramento Kings, after they played in the league’s first exhibitions in faraway India, quickly endangered a campaign that was supposed to bring a halt to the league’s longest playoff drought (13 seasons and counting).
Injuries have been frequent, too, to stars such as Blake Griffin, Jrue Holiday, Trae Young, Myles Turner and now Curry.
Even some of the feel-good stories in the season’s first two weeks have been blemished by downbeat disclaimers. The Suns, for example, are off to a surprising 4-2 start, but they have also lost Deandre Ayton, their cornerstone centre, to a 25-game suspension for taking a banned diuretic.
The Philadelphia 76ers are the NBA’s last remaining unbeaten team at 5-0, but they just watched their star centre Joel Embiid incur a two-game suspension for a scuffle Wednesday night with Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony Towns. The same punishment was given to Towns, sidelining the Timberwolves’ centre amid the most well-rounded and dominant offensive stretch of his career.
Yet the league’s other recent crises aren’t so easily managed. From the complicated new reality of doing business in China after an inflammatory tweet about Hong Kong from Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey, to New Orleans’ ongoing challenges in maintaining Williamson’s health given his gargantuan six-foot-six, 284-pound frame, this has been a dispiriting launch that no one anticipated.
It was supposed to be a different kind of season, one refreshingly focused on the present — meaning the actual games rather than the future, for once. The past several seasons have been overshadowed by breathless (and constant) speculation about soon-to-be free agents, from Durant three years ago to LeBron two years ago to Anthony Davis, Durant and Kyrie Irving a season ago. But the 2020 free-agent class currently features no certifiable franchise players.
This was to be the season that the most wide-open title race in years, after all the big free-agent signings and trades, would be the focus. So far? No such luxury.
One can only hope that, perhaps come U.S. Thanksgiving, the NBA’s present will rebound and allow us to do the same.