ROCKIES COULD FEEL PAIN OF LIKELY RULE CHANGE
If the NBA returns this season and a champion is crowned, there will be no asterisk attached to the title winner, according to former Nugget and current ESPN analyst Jalen Rose.
As the NBA readies to make a decision on potentially returning in the coming weeks, there’s nothing concrete as to how the league will proceed. Finish regular season games? Jump right into a modified playoffs? No one knows as this point. Although there’s been positive momentum recently, including calls between NBA commissioner Adam Silver and the league’s board of governors, the coronavirus itself will dictate what’s possible from the NBA’s perspective.
But Rose said that it won’t matter if something wonky happens or if an unforeseen champion emerges in a playoff setting. That champion should be recognized regardless of the circumstances.
“People are living during a pandemic and being quarantined in situations where they know everything is going to be unique,” Rose said in a phone interview. “When I’m doing television, I’m not worried about if I have an internet issue or if it doesn’t look as clear as it normally would if we were in studio because people understand that it’s just going to be different right now.
“Same thing with an NBA champion,” he said. “There are all types of asterisks you can use in NBA history if you want. Times when people were injured, strike-shortened seasons, times where the rules were changed, the 3-point line moved in, times when the ball was different. Like, there are all types of scenarios if you get deeper into the weeds about it, but ultimately to get to a champion, I think it would make the fans really enthusiastic because sports would be a welcome distraction for a lot of the things that we’re dealing with as a society right now.”
As states begin to re-open, Rose brought up the return of the Korean baseball league, MMA and NASCAR as examples of professional sports that have begun to return.
“From ownership to front office to players to officials, people feel like, at some point when restrictions get eased, if there can be sports, one of them will be NBA basketball,” Rose said.