Could Thunder turn into Cinderella in Disney bubble?
When the Thunder plays the Jazz on Aug. 1 in Orlando, 142 days will have passed since the same teams took the court in Oklahoma City for a tipoff that never came. You know, the Rudy Gobert game that made America realize the coronavirus was a real thing.
For teams that lose the conference finals in any normal year, the break between final buzzer of the elimination game and the next season opener is somewhere in the neighborhood of 142 days.
In the Orlando bubble, the NBA isn't resuming the 2019-20 season. The NBA is starting a new season. Sure, the
records and rosters carry over. But the 22 teams granted a Disney FastPass will have gone almost four months without a practice and 4½ months without a game. They're playing in Mickey Mouse gyms with no fans. The players virtually are quarantined, albeit in some people's version of paradise. Some players are choosing not to participate; others might jump off Splash Mountain midstream. And the threat of the virus looms overall; COVID-19 testing could put a curse on a star or even a team at any time.
“Won't be ideal,” said OKC's Shai GilgeousAlexander. “But I think this whole situation won't be ideal.”
Magic Kingdom? Mystic Kingdom is more like it. Orlando is going to be a weird, wild place, with playoff basketball like we've never seen before.
All of which could produce a fairy tale the NBA rarely sees: Cinderella.
Cinderella lives in March, during the NCAA Tournament's madness. Then the NBA takes the stage and banishes underdogs to the dungeon. The NBA's true Cinderella stories are rare and almost always injuryinfluenced — Toronto winning the championship last June, when the Warriors played without Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson; or the 2011 Grizzlies upsetting, as an eight seed, the regal Spurs, mostly because Manu Ginobili was playing with one arm.
Cinderella can crash the ball in a one-game shootout. But midnight comes fast in a seven-game series.
Except in 2020, the NBA has entered a cloudy world, where pumpkins become royal coaches and mice become stallions.
Which is very good news for the Thunder.
The Thunder — and about 25 other NBA teams — don't have the horses to contend for a title in the traditional playoff format. But in this Disney bubble, strange things happen.
“I have no idea as a coach, what our team
looks like when we get to Orlando,” Billy Donovan said this week. “I know how we were playing in early March before the Utah game. But I don't know what that's gonna look like once we get to Orlando.”
That's the bad news. The good news? Every other coach in NBA feels the same. We don't know if the Lakers and Bucks will have the same momentum and cohesion. We don't know if the Clippers and other superstar-laden teams will find their chemistry. The Thunder stunk coming out of the gate last autumn; what if some of the superteams stink coming out of the gate in August?
Steven Adams didn't buy the theory when I tossed it his way Thursday.
“My initial reaction is no,” Adams said. “That's without too much thought. With very little thought. I think it's the same. I wouldn't put that much value on it. But I could be wrong, mate. You may be on to something.”
Adams himself called Orlando “a whole different kettle of fish.”
And then Adams talked about the readjustment period. Players can condition on their own, work out in an empty gym or even play pickup ball on their own time.
“But playing with an NBA team, it's just different,” Adams said. “It's a weird thing. It'll be interesting. The team that gets it on quick, they're the ones who come out strong. I'm betting on our team. Our team does relatively well with that sort of thing, all being together.”
The Thunder was a good, not great, team when the NBA season ended March 11. But now we're in a new season, a shortened season, where anything can happen. And that's the point. It's literally a new season, where for the first time in forever, fairy tales can come true.