WILL SPURS MAKE TRIP TO KINGDOM?
Finishing NBA season at Disney World might not be magical for all
Flash forward to the early fall. LeBron James is coming off a court somewhere, backdropped by cascading confetti, having won his fourth NBA championship and first with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Or maybe it’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, pool cue-like index finger held aloft, rapturous in the wake of the Milwaukee Bucks’ first NBA title since 1971.
Or — brace yourselves, Spurs fans — perhaps its Kawhi Leonard, stoic but celebratory after doing for the Clippers in Los Angeles what he did for the Toronto Raptors last season.
“I’m going to Disney World,” (insert name of star) says.
Then (insert name of star) takes two steps out of the gym and rides Space Mountain.
That scenario seems something of a plausibility under an NBA plan gaining traction that would restart the suspended season at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex just outside of Orlando, Fla.
The plan would call for players, coaches and other essential employees to be housed onsite under stringent safety protocols and with ample testing for the COVID-19 virus available.
Beyond those certainties lie a raft of uncertainties about what the resumption of the season would mean for a team like the Spurs.
Spurs chief executive officer R.C. Buford is on record saying the team fully supports a return to the court.
“Our position all along is that we want to do what is right for the league and for the fans,” Buford said late last month. “Every intention is to return to play and try to create the best environments we can for the league and for the fans, and we are all on board with that.”
It is premature to say what form such a return might take.
In the best-case scenario, the NBA would like to return with a few regular-season games before fast-forwarding directly to the playoffs. There is an outline that would allow teams not in the playoff picture March 11, the day the season was paused, to play their way into the final seed. There are scenarios in which the league begins with the playoffs, leaving teams outside the top eight of each conference out of luck.
For the Spurs, there are dueling interests at play when it comes to how the league might reopen.
On the one hand, the team could use the money.
Teams need to play a minimum of 70 games in order to satisfy local TV contracts. Subtracting a pair of games aired exclusively on national networks this season, the Spurs still need nine games to reach that threshold.
The crux of the Spurs’ local television contract is with Fox Sports Networks. To get full value from that portion of the deal, the Spurs need to play 60 games on the network. Minus games that aired locally on KENS-TV or KMYS-TV or nationally, the Spurs need 13 more games to hit that number.
Another reason for the Spurs to want to play more games: pride.
The Spurs own one of the more impressive streaks in the history of professional sports with 22 consecutive playoff appearances. With a 23rd this season, they would snap a tie with Philadelphia for the NBA record.
That streak was in peril long before the coronavirus shut down the league in March. At 27-36 and in 12th place in the
Western Conference, it was always going to be a heavy lift for the Spurs to make the postseason.
However, the Spurs would undoubtedly prefer to be allowed to give it a shot.
If the NBA season resumes with a playoffs-only format, the Spurs’ streak is kaput.
On the other hand, it will take a lot of work to get a team like the Spurs ready for what could be a few final fruitless games in a sterile single site some 1,100 miles from their home arena.
With the playoffs a long shot, is it really worth the time and risk to ramp up older veterans like LaMarcus Aldridge, DeMar DeRozan and Rudy Gay for a postseason quest that is quixotic at best?
Across the NBA, discussions have taken place about the increased odds of soft tissue injuries should players be rushed onto the floor after a months-long respite in which many of them are just now being allowed to work out in gyms.
Some teams not in the playoff hunt have discussed treating the hypothetical Disney games as wannabe summer-league contests, sending as many young developmental players as possible while leaving older players at home.
There is also question of what to do about some of the league’s older coaches, and this too would affect the Spurs.
The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control has said adults over the age of 65 stand at higher risk of developing severe complications from COVID-19.
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is 71, the oldest in the NBA.
All of these factors point to questions the league must answer as it eyes a potential July return. Even then, an ill-timed new wave of coronavirus could wreck the NBA’s best conceived plans.
For now, it remains uncertain if the NBA is really going to Disney World.
If so, it also remains uncertain whether the Spurs will be going too.