Various ideas have been floated by players and executives. One is to consider using a sprawling casino property in Las Vegas, where everything could be held under one roof. Others have suggested playing in the Bahamas, where a ballroom could be converted into a playing court specifically for broadcast. There has even been talk of taking over a college campus in the Midwest, where reported cases of COVID-19 are lower for the moment.
Storyline: NBA Schedule
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As COVID-19, the coronavirus, spreads across the U.S., the NBA is preparing for the possibility of playing a summer schedule for the first time in league history. There is resounding ownership support for finding a way to finish the season, NBA officials told SI.com, even if that means re-starting the season in late June, even if that pushes the Finals into September. Some estimates have the NBA losing as much as $1 billion in a lost season, an eye popping number team owners desperately want to bring down.
The NBA could also test elements of its planned in-season tournament, which Silver said he “strongly” believes will be incorporated in the coming years. NBA sources told CNBC the league has already floated the idea of using Las Vegas as the final location for a possible in-season tournament.
“The only reason we haven’t played games after June 12 in the past is because our TV partners [see] HUT’s—homes using television—drop significantly,” Cuban said in a recent interview. “Well the TV landscape has changed dramatically over the last three-four years.” The conventional thinking: the weather gets warmer, fewer people watch television, ratings plummet. And they do. But some television executives see any ratings drop reflecting the lack of effort often put into summer programming as the timing of it. Broadcast networks pull top rated scripted shows off the air in the spring and bring them back in the fall.
Several players told SI.com that they would be open to a summer schedule, provided it resulted in a boost in revenue. “Money talks,” texted one veteran player. The current collective bargaining agreement expires in 2024. The NBA’s rights deals expire in 2025, creating, perhaps, a window for the league to explore a change.
The league is on hold with the rest of the world because of the coronavirus. There is nothing close to a set return date for the NBA — and any time there is a suspension in play, an unplanned round of negotiations typically results. “The NBA and the union are going to have to negotiate when they come back,” ESPN insider Brian Windhorst said on his podcast. “They’re going to have to open the collective bargaining agreement for simple things like changing the league year.”
As one league insider cautioned me, we shouldn’t assume next year’s schedule will necessarily change as a result of this year. While all of us in the peanut gallery are jonesing to push the schedule back, that requires a massive undertaking from the league side at a time when it is already in the midst of another massive undertaking. The NBA could also do everything I outlined in this story and still kick off 2020-21 more or less on time this fall. If that’s the case, however, then that Labor Day timeframe becomes even more of a hard deadline for this season to end.
Team executives seem to be warming to the idea of a December start, though their evolving opinions may be due to necessity, depending on how long the wait is until games are played. It could be a good time to experiment, though. As mentioned earlier, installing a postseason play-in tournament to determine the playoffs was discussed. The playoffs could change formats to reduce the number of games in a series, which Rockets general manager Daryl Morey proposed in the past. It would be a way for the league to test-drive nontraditional ideas without a long-term commitment.
Atlanta Hawks CEO Steve Koonin recently proposed starting and ending the NBA season two months than they currently do in order to avoid footballl. Due to the NBA suspending the 19-20 season because of COVID-19, the league may be forced to adopt “I even had one team president, who I respect, who I think has some level of influence in the league said to me the other day that he never really liked that Koonin idea, but the more he thinks about it now, the more it does intrigue him,” said Adrian Wojnarowski.
Some key N.B.A. figures welcome an experiment with radical changes to the schedule, such as contesting the N.B.A. finals in August, pushing free agency into September and starting the 2020-21 season on Christmas Day. It is hardly unanimous, but there is a faction eager to turn the delay forced upon the league by the coronavirus outbreak into an unexpected testing ground.
The ever-growing status of N.B.A. free agency as a huge July hit has inevitably led some teams to wonder how popular the biggest playoff games could be if staged later in the summer rather than in June, thus pushing the draft/free agency/summer league trifecta all the way into September.
Hawks CEO proposes starting season in December
Atlanta Hawks CEO Steve Koonin has a plan to increase the NBA’s ratings: start and end the season two months later. Koonin spoke Friday afternoon at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston on a panel about possible changes to the league’s schedule.
Under Koonin’s proposal, the start of the season would shift from mid-October to mid-December, after the college football season has completed its regular season and has begun its bowl season. More important, the shift would cause the NBA to avoid having to compete with two months of the NFL’s regular season, as it currently does in the first two-and-a-half months before the “unofficial” start to the league’s calendar on Christmas Day.
Meanwhile, the NBA Finals would take place sometime in August rather than June, with the draft and free agency to come after that. That would again allow the NBA to dominate more of the summer months, when it is only going up against Major League Baseball, instead of fighting with football for territory. “A big piece is you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to enhance ratings,” Koonin said. “Sometimes, moving away from competition is a great way to grow ratings.”
More important than Koonin proposing the change, though, is that Evan Wasch, the NBA’s senior vice president of strategy and analytics, said the league was open to such an idea — as well as others that could reshape how the NBA’s regular season plays out, as well as when it does. “We certainly have no issue with reconsidering the calendar,” Wasch said. “To Steve’s point, you have to think about the other stakeholders. They need to get more comfortable with the Finals in August, rather than June, where traditionally the household viewership is a lot lower.”
Mark Cuban: Put aside the 78 games because that’s a different issue and it’s not a big deal one way or the other. You can make up four games in terms of a play-in or whatever. I’m not necessarily opposed to 78 games, I just have to see the specifics. But when you feel like you need to have an in-season tournament because you feel it’s needed to make the start of a season or the early-grind-it-out parts of a season interesting, you’re effectively saying that without this, the games aren’t interesting. To me, that’s never a good thing in business. You never, ever want to say, “Well, my product’s not as good this time of year as it is in that time of year, so we’re going to spice things up.” That’s not the case and that’s never good business in my mind.
Lakers vs. Clippers rescheduled to April 9
Kyle Goon: From the NBA: Lakers-Clippers has been rescheduled, with four total games affected. – Bulls at Clippers, April 6 (was 8th) – Warriors at Lakers, April 7 (was 9th) – Bulls at Lakers, April 8 (was 7th) – Clippers at Lakers, April 9 (was Jan. 28) Three-in-three stretch for Lakers.
More than three weeks have passed with no announcement of a makeup date as the league deals with an uncooperative calendar. Neither the Lakers nor the Clippers have an obvious, mutual opening over the remaining regular season. To make matters worse, they must share Staples Center with the Kings and frequent special events such as concerts. A league spokesman said Thursday that no date has been finalized.
Some openings on the Lakers’ and Clippers’ schedules would inflict a three-game stretch on one or both teams. Others would require a daytime tipoff on a weekday to allow the Kings play that night. The teams could meet on April 10, shortly before the end of the regular season, but Staples Center also has a concert booked that night.
League executives could schedule the game for the day after the regular season ends, but that also poses a problem. By that time, the result could be meaningless in terms of playoff seedings for one or both teams, a situation that could lead to most if not all the starters resting on the bench. But the outcome could also affect the seeding of another Western Conference team, with its postseason fate decided by a contest played between substitutes.
The most recent version of the in-season tournament included pool play, with designated tournament games built into each team’s regular schedule. The top-eight teams based on the results of pool play would then meet in a single-elimination tournament. Under the most recent proposal, all games — including pool play — would fall between Christmas and the week of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Spruell said. The league has considered using a 40-minute format for games in the elimination portion of the tournament, Spruell said. Given the outcome of the All-Star Game on Sunday, the league will also discuss the possibility of using an Elam Ending-style target score in those elimination games, Spruell said.
Jared Dudley: Will be done next December! Best teams will play each other.. will help the ratings! Big money prize for the top 2 teams in the finals
Mark Medina: Adam Silver still optimistic there will be a mid-season tournament. But nothing seems imminent
Eric Walden: Silver clarifies that talks of an in-season tournament are neither dead nor dormant. Said there are further discussions ongoing with players and media about the details, and “strongly” believes an in-season tourney and a play-in tourney will eventually both happen.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver on Thursday shed light on his aspirations to create an NBA Cup to run through November and December. The idea was first floated in 2016 but has gained traction in recent months with a proposal to cut the regular season to 78 games to make room for an in-season tournament.
“It’s a fairly dramatic change from the way U.S. schedules have worked historically,” Silver said. “So it’s not the change we want to make lightly. And so we’re deep into discussions right now with our 30 teams about the right way to innovate and integrate those kinds of changes into our regular season. In fact, as we went down that road, the thinking initially was we would only do it for our 75th anniversary, which is the 2021-22 season.”
“The conversations with our teams have not been adversarial,” Silver said. “It’s not so much a question of counting heads in order to win a vote. Again, it’s more a function of ensuring that we’re taking advantage of the best thinking from our teams as we move forward.” Silver admitted he mines European sports for industry trends that might inform the future evolution of his organization.
As the NBA continues to consider dramatic changes to the league calendar, it no longer plans to stage an owner’s vote in April on a formal plan, league sources told ESPN. The NBA informed its teams on Friday that it wants to continue studying and discussing the three significant items, including an in-season tournament, a play-in tournament and the reseeding of the conference finalists, sources said.
The NBA had hoped to have the two-thirds majority needed to make these changes for the 2021-2022 season — the league’s 75th anniversary — and still hope despite no April vote that there’s a way that might be possible, sources said.
Among the concerns, there is still no consensus on the best time for the 30 team in-season tournament that would include pool play and a knock-out round. There had been momentum around a tournament starting near Thanksgiving and extending into mid-December, and there’s been some recent momentum for a tournament starting around Christmas through mid-January, sources said.
Adrian Wojnarowski: NBA had hoped that an April BOG vote of calendar changes could give ample planning to implement changes for 75th Anniversary season in 2021-22. That season hasn’t been ruled out yet for changes, sources say, but it’s a tight window for all the planning that needs to occur.
Adrian Wojnarowski: Among concerns for key elements of calendar changes, league feedback on in-season tournament has been to protect existing events like Christmas Day games. Re-seeding of Final 4 continues to have travel concerns. More time to discuss and study it all now.
Marc Stein: The feeling in NBA circles remains that a play-in playoff tournament and an in-season tournament will still be adopted by the league … but teams were indeed notified today that there will be NO vote in April
Marc Stein: The league wants to take more time to refine aspects of a playoff play-in tournament and the much-discussed, soccer-style tournament that would take place during the season before putting it to a vote of team owners
Howard Beck: One thing I was advised from the start: Adam Silver would not hold April vote on schedule reform unless he was certain he had the votes to approve. This move would imply he did not.
Jeff Zillgitt: Re: Changes to NBA schedule – I was told in November that a vote didn’t have to happen at April owners meeting. The league has received tons of feedback on these ideas and instead of making these one-year one-offs, they will take a look at long-term viability of some proposals.
NBA delaying vote on schedule changes
Adrian Wojnarowski: NBA has been working closely with teams, NBPA and stakeholders and wants to continue studying how in-season tournament, play-in for 7/8 seeds and re-seeding of Final Four could best be planned and monetized in the long-run. League plans an update for owners at April BOG meeting.
Chris Paul did not fly back to Oklahoma City with his teammates Tuesday night after he practically defeated the Brooklyn Nets all by himself. Instead, he stayed in town for meeting with NBA Players Association officials to discuss proposed changes to the playoff landscape. If approved, the 82-game schedule could be a thing of the past.
In an exclusive interview with forbes.com, Paul — the president of the players’ union — was very much the diplomat. “That’s the thing about our league, we’re at least brainstorming and trying to find a way to make it entertaining. But at the end of the day, it’s still entertainment,” Paul said.
Paul takes the temperature of different players every time he travels with the Oklahoma City Thunder, and Wednesday’s meeting at union headquarters in Manhattan should bring some clarity to the union’s position. For now, Paul is non-committal as to where he and the union stand. “Nothing is set in stone, and we’ll figure it out,” Paul said. “Personally, this isn’t my company. We’re a league and a union, and we’re going to figure it out.”
Most NBA records are based upon an 82-game schedule, and there are some who feel the record book would be compromised by changing that number to 78 or 79. “But they haven’t always played 82 games, either, and everything is a conversation. Noithing has been finalized” Paul said. “Luckily there are a lot of people who have been in the business, and hopefully the right decisions are made.
The NBA is seriously reconsidering the idea of reseeding the four conference finalists as part of a larger proposal to reshape the league’s calendar, sources told ESPN. The NBA appears to be moving toward an eventual vote of the league’s board of governors in April to implement an in-season tournament and postseason play-in for the seventh and eighth playoff seeds, but there’s an increasing chance that the reseeding idea could be eliminated before a final vote, sources said.
Many teams, especially those on the coasts, have expressed concerns about the increased travel that could lead to competitive disadvantages and a loss of traditional rivalries, sources said. For example, a Milwaukee-Indiana conference final would presumably benefit the winner of that series over a team that emerged from a cross-country Los Angeles-Miami series. The NBA’s coastal teams have been largely against this reseeding idea, sources said. The league’s research has shown that the proposal of reseeding teams based on regular season records could lead to travel increases of 60% and could result in one in one out of every four series being played across three time zones, sources said.
As much as there is potential for this to add some incentive for teams and its players during the regular-season, not all players are keen on the idea. “I’m old school. In my opinion, I don’t like it,” said San Antonio Spurs’ DeMar DeRozan recently. “Maybe I’d have a different opinion if I was a rookie or a second-year player, but me – the game is what it is for a reason.” The idea of in-season tournaments isn’t new in professional sports.
Commissioner Adam Silver, however, is determined to push through some of these new concepts. He understands that interest in the regular season is waning, even after the wildest off-season in terms of player movement in league history, and is prepared to take a gamble or two to try to address the decline. Resistance from various front offices has been strongest to the idea of re-seeding the four teams which reach the conference finals based on regular-season record, due partly to the potential for significantly increased travel one round earlier than the N.B.A. finals. So look for Silver to ultimately scrap that element of the proposal to focus on securing the needed approval for the soccer-style “cup” competition and the playoff play-in games.
Cody Westerlund: #Bulls coach Jim Boylen: “I love the 82-game schedule. I think it’s a test of your toughness, your competitiveness, character. I love what it does to a team. I think it’s really important.”
The NBA has proposed trimming the season from 82 games to 78 in 2021-22, adding an in-season tournament and adding win-or-go-home play-in games to the start of the postseason. The league also has floated changing its playoff format to reseed the final four teams by record to help ensure the best teams square off in the Finals. A vote on these changes is expected in April. “Games that are meaningful are more likely to draw ratings,” Silver said. “Not to say [the in-season tournament] is a permanent change, but let’s try this. It’s going to require a leap of faith by our teams, the Players Association, our network partners and our marketing partners. It’s based on our best research and ideas. Until we execute on it, we won’t really know how big of a difference it will make.”
Mark Medina: Gregg Popovich said he doesn’t have much of an opinion on the NBA’s proposal for an in-season tournament. But one thing is clear: Pop is not a fan at all of the plus/minus stat
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr is intrigued by the NBA’s proposed 30-team in-season tournament. “I’m open minded about it,” Kerr said before Friday night’s game against the Pelicans at Chase Center. “I think the league is always looking to improve its product, and I think it’s a good idea to explore these things.”
In addition to the post-Thanksgiving tournament, the NBA is making a case to teams and the union for a play-in for the seventh and eighth conference playoff seeds, and a reseeding of teams in the semifinal round based on regular-season records. “I think that’s interesting and has merit,” Kerr said of reseeding teams in the semifinal round. “If your goal is to get the best two teams in the Finals and it’s pretty clear cut then, yeah, I’d be interested in that.”
“I think it makes sense, and I’ve been a proponent of that,” Kerr said of a shorter regular-season schedule. “I know that everyone has to agree to what that means to revenue and players and owners. They all have to agree on that stuff, but yeah, I think 82 is a lot of games and just cutting out a small handful could be really meaningful during the season in terms of rest and practice time.”
Patrick Beverley: Don’t sound to BAD
NBA proposes schedule changes
Shams Charania: Sources: NBA has sent teams the proposal for 2021-22 season changes: – 78-game regular season – In-season tournament ($1M per player, $1.5M coaches pool for champion) – Play-in tourneys for 7-8 playoff seeds – Final 4 reseed in playoffs based on regular season records
Shams Charania: Sources: NBA’s in-season tournament format proposal: All 30 teams involved from late Nov. to mid-Dec.: – Divisional games (4 home, 4 away) for group stage – 6 divisional stage winners, plus 2 wildcards for knockout – Quarterfinals at home market; semifinals/Finals at neutral site
The NBA is discussing a $1 million per player purse for the winners of the proposed 30-team, in-season tournament, league sources told ESPN. The league is hopeful that an additional financial incentive would motivate players to treat a new tournament with a competitive fervor.
Among the concerns of top front office officials discussing these ideas with the league office: Many suspect that star players might prefer the five-day scheduling break that would come with not qualifying for the tournament rather than competing for the financial reward of a winner-take-all event that requires a quarterfinal, semifinal and title round to become champion.
Bobby Marks: Important to know that 50% of the NBA players earn $4M or less-including 142 below $2M. Only 29% of NBA players earn above the $9.5M average player salary-including 50 that top $20M+.
Especially among big market owners with larger home game financial gates, finances have also been an overriding concern about the league’s in-season tournament idea: Can the NBA promise “revenue-neutral” financial returns to teams for shortening the schedule to 78 regular season games, sources tell ESPN. Teams are reluctant to take short-term losses on losing two home dates to accommodate the tournament, especially when those games can be worth between $3 million and $4 million for the most profitable big market teams, league sources said.
Adrian Wojnarowski: Story filed to ESPN: The NBA is discussing a $1 million per player purse for the winners of the proposed 30-team, in-season tournament. Reporting with more details on discussions for possible 2021-2022 league calendar change soon on site.
Connor Letourneau: Steve Kerr said he’s open to the idea of a midseason tournament in the NBA, but he needs more information.
“Bro, the league’s trying to do a whole lot for fan engagement because of the TV ratings and all that stuff,” Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie said. “Because we’re in the entertainment industry, we’re trying to make money. At the end of the day, that’s what it comes down to. So if that’s what they feel is going to make money, then do it. If they feel like other means, they should do that, too.”
One proposal from a couple of team employees: Guarantee the winning team a playoff spot. That’s interesting. It doesn’t really impact the elite teams. Some ultra-tankers might not even want a playoff spot if it removes them from the lottery. (They probably wouldn’t want to turn off their fans by tanking the midseason tournament, either.) How would clinching a playoff spot in December change behavior over the rest of the season for a middling playoff team?
Teams have been formally proposing schedule tweaks for years. At least one has advocated for a 58-game schedule, with each team playing every other team twice. (Even the proposing team knows that is too radical right now.) One Eastern Conference executive submitted a proposal that in its own way includes midseason and play-in tournaments: a 62-game regular season, after which teams are placed into three tiers based on their record in those 62 games. Teams then play 18 games within their tier — facing each team home and away — bringing the season to 80 games.
But it’s unclear what incentives will be in the final proposal; virtually any idea you can imagine has been discussed and debated during meetings. Clarity will come soon—there are only five months to go before the Board of Governors meeting in April, when votes will take place. Sources confirmed a high-ranking source who told ESPN that there’s been “no real pushback” from teams and players for the tournament. But there’s certainly concern about whether it could be a flop financially or struggle to draw ratings. Still, multiple front-office executives have gone as far as to say change is inevitable—it’s just a matter of the form it takes.
Two hurdles that could prevent any of this from happening are broadcasting rights and arena scheduling. League sources expect that in-season tournament games will run simultaneously on national and local stations, and in-season tournament knockout rounds could take place at a neutral site, such as Las Vegas, where the league hosts summer league and the G League Showcase.
The NBA could also change locations of the tournament each year, like the NCAA does for March Madness or the NFL does with the Super Bowl. “The in-season tournament can be the way to bring competitive basketball to cities without a team like Seattle or Mexico City or even London,” one front-office executive said. The NBA already plays annual regular-season games in Mexico and Europe; additionally, in January 2020, the Bucks will face the Hornets in Paris. Without a neutral site, scheduling would become a nightmarish task. Arenas are already frustrated with having to hold so many open dates for potential postseason games; adding two tournaments would require them to have even more open dates, league sources said.
Mark Cuban: IMHO, Key reason I’m not for a <78 gm schedule: in a very competitive OTT environment, our potential customer's greatest challenges are cust acq and retention. Longer season/yr round NBA programming =more sign ups, less reason to churn, more value
Steve Popper: Pop on possible NBA changes: Whatever they do, they do. I have bigger fish to fry. Mr. Silver will work at that stuff and do his best job with all his colleagues. And I will offer no advice because they’re a lot smarter than me. And I don’t want any out of bounds plays from him.
Mike Vorkunov: Knicks coach David Fizdale says he supports whatever changes the NBA ends up making to its season and schedule, and calls commish Adam Silver innovative. “In-season tournament?” Fizdale said. “Every game is an in-season tournament to me. We’re fighting for our life every night.”
NBA mulling reseeding, in-season tournament and play-in tourney
The NBA is engaged in serious discussions with the National Basketball Players Association and broadcast partners on sweeping and dramatic changes to the league calendar that would include a reseeding of the four conference finalists, a 30-team in-season tournament and a postseason play-in, league sources told ESPN. These scenarios would include the shortening of the regular season to a minimum of 78 games, league sources said.
Discussions are progressing with hopes of bringing a vote to the April meeting of the league’s Board of Governors that would introduce some — if not all — of these proposals into the NBA’s 75th anniversary season of 2021-22, league sources said. The NBA still has work to do coordinating with constituents on the myriad implications involving the proposed changes. The reseeding of teams in the semifinal round based on regular-season record could give the NBA a championship series that includes its best two teams. The WNBA has been seeding teams in the playoffs without regard to conference for several seasons.
In proposals that include adoption of in-season tournaments and post-season play-in, the traditional regular season schedule would be reduced from 82 games — with most teams scheduled to play 78 or 79 games. There’s an extremely limited possibility of a team playing a maximum of 83 games based on on possible tournament and play-in scenarios, league sources said. For the in-season tournament, the NBA is focused on 30-team participation that begins with a divisional group stage of scheduled regular-season games. Those pre-knockout round games will be part of the regular-season schedule. Six divisional winners — based on home and away records in the group stage — and teams with the next two best records would advance to a single-elimination knockout round, league sources said. Those teams could each potentially compete in the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals.
The NBA and NBPA are finding common ground on a post-Thanksgiving tournament window that would extend into mid-December, league sources said. Months ago, the NBA had proposed a late January-February tournament that would culminate with a Final Four during All-Star weekend, sources said. That idea faded fast. Both the union and team executives expressed concern over that idea. The NBPA was resistant to shortening players’ All-Star breaks and requiring some to potentially participate in the in-season tournament and All-Star weekend.
The 2019-20 NBA schedule was unveiled Monday, featuring a record 48 games starting at prime time for Europe (afternoon start times in North America, prime time for European time zones). The new season will see 24 games tip off during European prime time on Sundays and, for the first time ever, 24 games on Saturdays.
Josh Martin: Lonzo Ball set to make Lakers return on Jan. 3
Ian Begley: The Nets play at Golden State on March 12. New Net Kevin Durant would be roughly nine months removed from surgery to repair his torn right Achilles at that point. Brooklyn opens its season at home against Minnesota on Oct. 23. D’Angelo Russell & GSW come to Brooklyn on Feb. 5.
Michael Singer: Denver’s last Christmas home game … was 25 years ago.
March 31, 2020 | 2:03 pm EDT Update
SB NATION: I’ll begin with a question I find myself asking just about everyone I talk to these days: How are you staying safe? And, did you consider traveling home once the NBA allowed its players to do so, or just bunker down and stay put? PAT CONNAUGHTON: I stayed in Milwaukee. I tried to look at it from a variety of different angles. For me, I’m from the Boston area and Massachusetts was arguably hit worse than the majority of other places, so going home didn’t really make sense for me, for my own health but also for the safety of my family. We’re fortunate to be in the NBA. We might as well stay close to our team just in case, God forbid something does happen and we need access to doctors, we have team doctors. If we need access to food for some reason, the chefs are trying to help us out when they can. There’s different things that I think teams are doing to help their players that stick around.
SB: Being part of such a special season with the Bucks, how often do you think about the possibility that the season is over, and how you might never get an opportunity to finish what you started? How difficult would that be, given all the hard work that was put in and what the expectations were? PAT CONNAUGHTON: It’s tough because you look at it from a few different lenses. You think seasons like this don’t come along every year, so if it ends that’s gonna suck. To be honest. But when you look at it from the lens of an athlete you’re like we, as a team, are very good. What is preventing us from doing it again next year? Obviously we would be disappointed, we’re having a great year, etc. But maybe it just makes us hungrier next year. Maybe it’s fuel on the fire, as opposed to something else. Giannis will be a year older, a year more skilled. We’ll all be getting better. If you look at it that way you can throw some positive light to it.
PAT CONNAUGHTON: The other light you look at it, just being open and honest, there are guys that are on contract years. There are guys that, I mean, personally I don’t have a technical contract for next year or anything. So you look at it like how does it affect free agency? How does it affect the salary cap? What does our team look like next year if the season were to end and not continue, and the playoffs weren’t to happen and there weren’t a champion to be crowned. I think all of those are unknown. I could sit here for 24 straight hours and put down a sheet of paper, pros, cons, all these different scenarios, but I don’t think that does me any good. We don’t know. Nobody knows. The NBA is full of much smarter people than myself. Adam Silver is great. The owners are all very smart guys. The general managers are very smart guys. Obviously the player’s union, Michelle. Chris Paul. All them are very smart. I believe the best interest of as many players as possible and all the teams and the league itself will be what’s most important and what will be accomplished. So for me to worry about those sorts of things, sure, but at the same time it’s not gonna help me. I’m not gonna figure out, sitting in this apartment in the next month and a half, what the answers are.
March 31, 2020 | 12:24 pm EDT Update
The league hopes to launch the event Friday, with the 16-player tournament lasting 10 days. It is expected to include stars such as the Utah Jazz’s Donovan Mitchell, four-time All-Star DeMarcus Cousins and two-time All-Star Andre Drummond, among other big-name players, sources said.
Isaiah Thomas: “I see some guys putting their names in the draft. I would just tell them, ‘You got to make the best life decision for yourself. Don’t just go off what you want to do right now. Figure out the positives and the negatives of the situation. Make sure you know the ins and outs of what’s going on, and what can possibly happen, and what can’t happen. And then you go from there and make a decision.’”
Isaiah Thomas: “I was a junior when I entered the draft. I had a year of eligibility left. I wrote down my pros and cons — all the good things by putting my name in the draft and all the negative things that could possibly happen, which can go from not getting drafted to going in the second round to getting drafted and then there being a lockout and no money coming in, and not knowing what to do next. My final decision was that I’m going to just bet on myself. I’ll figure things out. I just felt like college wasn’t going to do anything for me going forward. But on the back end of things, yes, the lockout was on my mind.”
Tim Reynolds: Tomorrow at 4 p.m. Eastern: Dr. Vivek Murthy, the former surgeon general of the United States under President Barack Obama and now a league coronavirus adviser, will take your questions on the @NBA Twitter account. Send your questions for Dr. Murthy to @NBA and use #NBATogether
March 31, 2020 | 10:36 am EDT Update
Borrego liked the contrast of styles: the run-and-gun Nuggets against the behemoth Lakers, starting the Pau Gasol-Andrew Bynum mega-frontcourt. Bynum averaged 17 points and 12 rebounds per game for the series, and put up a triple-double — including 10 blocked shots — in the Lakers’ Game 1 win. “A lot of our guys probably don’t even know Andrew Bynum,” Borrego said. The series was also incredibly physical. The offensive teams rebounded almost 37% of all misses, a mark that would lead the league today by a laughable margin. The teams combined for 47 offensive rebounds in the Lakers’ 96-87 win in Game 7; Gasol had six — all in a row — on one pivotal fourth-quarter possession. “Part of this is to show them what physical playoff basketball looks like,” Borrego said. “This is where we want to get to someday. Let’s study it.”
All the players said they enjoyed learning more about the classic NBA characters in that series. Obviously, today’s players love watching peak Bryant — now more than ever. Bynum has become something of a curiosity. “People forget how good Bynum was,” Zeller said. “He was a monster.” Caleb Martin said he was surprised at the speed and athleticism of a young Danilo Gallinari, playing almost full time as a wing. “You know of these guys, but you never sit down and actually watch them play a full game,” Cody Martin said.
On a recent episode of The Lake Lake Show podcast, Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report suggested that “it could be three or four years until the league is back in balance”. Pincus also went into depth on how the NBA will return. Where he stated that the league are considering canceling games. Which will create financial implications for players, even more so the high-end stars like LeBron James. “Players typically get paid on the 1st and 15th of every month and the 1st would be a full check. But the league hasn’t committed to the 15th… it means they’re considering canceling games. Because by the rules, they can’t dock players for games that are rescheduled. They can only dock from players for games that are canceled.”
“If they were going down that path they might start with canceling a few games. Why cancel a lot, right? There’s no reason to until you have a better feel. I could see them canceling 3 games and start deducting 3 games worth of money from each player’s check. For someone like LeBron James, that’s in the neighbourhood of $400,000 per game. So you’re talking about deducting $1.2 million from LeBron’s check. So it’s not a small amount.”
March 31, 2020 | 7:46 am EDT Update
ESPN’s NBA insider Brian Windhorst, on his recent podcast, expressed his thoughts what the offseason will most likely bring to big name free-agent DeMarcus Cousins. “I think DeMarcus Cousins is looking at a make good contract, even if it’s more than a minimum. I think that after a series of injuries he’s had, all of which indicates that he’s coming back too fast, doing too much, he needs even more time of coming back from this. He’s gonna have a job in the league, but I don’t think it’s gonna be a big money,” the NBA insider said.
The Brooklyn Nets are expected to continue to reshape their roster around Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. “I believe they have telegraphed they intend to use some of their young talent to acquire a third star along with Kyrie and Durant,” said Brian Windhorst. “Now, we can get enter a healthy debate here about whether Caris LeVert is that third star and they make the decision that he is. But my feel reading the tea leaves, paying attention to what Sean Marks has said and also being aware of some conversations they had at the trade deadline, which was sticking the toe in the water on some things, I think they’re going to swing for the fences whenever the season comes. They’re going to have to potentially hire a coach that is going to help them do that.”
Joe Harris is a pending free agent, one who likely will get a big raise this summer. But the sharpshooter wants to re-sign with the Nets, partly to take a shot at a title playing alongside Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. “Yeah, definitely! Why wouldn’t you?” Harris asked rhetorically before the season was suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Obviously those are guys who I’ve gotten close with now that I’ve been with them this past year. They’re obviously incredible players. You see what they’re able to do when they are healthy and are playing. I don’t see that there’s anybody in the NBA who wouldn’t want to play with those guys.”
On the Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis duo: Jason Terry: “They’re still headed down as one of the all-time dynamic duos in the history of the game, if they continue to win and then have success in the playoffs, and hopefully take us to another NBA finals and win a championship. Because they’re so young. When you have two young stars as KP and Luka, and the talent that they possess, they have yet to really reach their full potential and I think the chemistry that they’ve gained this season by playing together is going to continue to grow.
Jason Terry: “KP is learning that ‘hey maybe it might not be at the four position, maybe at the five position where I can be most dangerous and effective.’ Luka is also understanding ‘hey I might not have to take over an entire ball game, I can kind of conserve my energy and be the closer very similar to what Dirk [Nowitzki] was and kind of let KP get off early in games.
Trail Blazers center Jusuf Nurkic was all set to make his triumphant return on Sunday, Mar. 15 against the Houston Rockets. It was a home game for the Blazers. An early matinee game on national television. It was 10 days away from Nurk’s one-year mark of his leg injury. And to the Bosnian Beast, it was a “perfect” game to make his debut for the 2019-20 season. In choosing that day to return, it was a collective effort by Nurkic’s camp along with the entire Trail Blazers organization. In a recent interview with NBC Sports Northwest’s Trail Blazers Insider Dwight Jaynes, Nurk detailed what went into the decision making of that game.
Bosnia-Herzegovina is 9 hours ahead of Portland, OR; thus, the timing of a noon tip-off in Rip City also worked out great for his family and friends back home. It was an earlier game Sunday, and of course, I need to look [out] for my people back home. It was perfect for them too. It was like 8:30pm back home. So, everybody was pretty much set up and I thought it was a really good game because it was [a] home game and I really wanted to play [at] home first. — Trail Blazers center Jusuf Nurkic told our Dwight Jaynes
Evan Daniels: Minnesota’s Marcus Carr is declaring for the NBA Draft, but is not going to sign with an agent and will leave open his option to return to school, a source tells @247Sports.
After his teenage brother Dorian tragically died of heart disease, Dawkins tapped into his basketball network to pay for a memorial and an AAU team in Dorian’s memory. He says he quickly raised more than a hundred thousand dollars from some of the most important people in the sport. His network mattered. Before long, NBA agent Andy Miller noticed Dawkins and hired him. Fast forward a few years and Dawkins is at the NBA draft, barely legal to drink, sitting in the green room with Miller and Elfrid Payton’s family. Rodney Hood, Fred VanVleet … Dawkins was instrumental in directing their careers, in the belly of the basketball beast. “Everybody knew Andy was paying players,” Dawkins says in “The Scheme.” “Andy’s been paying players since I was born. It wasn’t, like, a secret.”
The president of the Spanish Basketball Federation, Jorge Garbajosa, wants to ensure the future of the National Team bench and for this, a new contract extension could be offered to Sergio Scariolo until 2024, according to AS.com. The Italian coach’s agreement with the Federation would come to an end after the 2020 Olympics. However, with the current worldwide health crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the postponement of the Games in Tokyo until 2021, a new scenario is created.
Every bit of help is key amidst this coronavirus pandemic, whether it’s food, cash or medical supplies. The Nets, Barclays Center and Alibaba — all owned by Joe Tsai — have been providing all of the above. With live sports shut down and teams and arenas getting squeezed economically, many hourly workers have been laid off or face pay cuts. But Nets and Barclays Center employees are getting the same checks they would have if they’d worked events as scheduled through the end of May. And it’s not just NBA games, but concerts, Islanders games, college basketball like the A-10 tourney and even graduations. A source familiar with the unions and the overall process told The Post the checks cut could end up totaling an estimated $6 million.
“We discussed supplies. I want to thank Michael Evans from Alibaba, who is here with us today,” Cuomo said at Monday’s press briefing. “I want to thank Elizabeth Jennings [the chief of staff] from the Asia Society, who is here with us today, who are helping us source supplies.“We’re in a situation where you have 50 states all competing for supplies, the federal government is now also competing for supplies, private hospitals are also competing for supplies. We’ve created a situation where you literally have hundreds of entities looking to buy the same exact materials basically from the same place, which is China.”
Chris Haynes: Sources: Clarity, it will be a 16-player NBA 2K tournament lasting 10 days. 4-time All-Star DeMarcus Cousins among the participants.
The league hopes to launch the event Friday, with the 16-player tournament lasting 10 days and including Utah Jazz All-Star Donovan Mitchell and four-time All-Star DeMarcus Cousins, among other big-name players, sources said.
Tomer Azarly: The Clippers’ gamer is all but likely going to be Paul George.
ABC/ESPN’s highly anticipated 10-part Michael Jordan documentary, “The Last Dance,” is being moved up to April, The Post has learned. Sources said the start date will be Sunday, April 19. It was originally slated for June. ABC/ESPN plans to make an announcement on “Good Morning America” on Tuesday, according to sources.
There are a lot of you who were looking forward to finally being able to cop a pair of Kobe’s at retail. But it looks like you’re going to have to wait a bit longer. The Lakers colorway of the Kobe 5 Protro was set to drop next Wednesday on April 1, but Sole Collector is reporting that Nike is holding off on the release once again. Here’s a look at them.
There are a couple possible reasons for the delay. The first is obviously coronavirus. We talked before about the delays and pushbacks we’d see in production with factories in China being shut down over the virus. Some of those are up and running again, though, so this might not be the case. The second is Nike still might not know what direction they want to go in with Kobe’s line — especially since resellers gobbled it up. Coming up with a strategy for the future of the line is imperative.
It looks like a facsimile of the Kobe VI plastered on top of the LeBron XIII lows. It’s a clunky and low cut which is never really a good combination for a hoop shoe. It’s important for Nike to get things right with Antetokounmpo because of his status in the landscape.of his sport now and going forward. Getring it right with him isn’t as easy as it seems. Giannis is ostensibly a big man with guard skills — even more so than LeBron James. On the other side, Zion Williamson is the future of Jordan Brand and he has the same problem.
March 30, 2020 | 9:31 pm EDT Update
Rudy Gobert has another piece of hardware to add to his trophy case. The Utah Jazz center was named the Pro Male Athlete of the Year by the Utah Sports Commission. Each year the State of Sport Awards recognizes the best athletes from across the sports landscape in the state of Utah.
The Utah Sports Commission recognized Gobert for his excellence on the court, as well as his impact on the state of Utah. Gobert has established Rudy’s Kids Foundation which supports charities that directly impact the lives of youth in Utah, as well as a program that donates money to ShelterKids and Salt Lake County Youth Services, and the Utah Refugee Connection with every blocked shot Gobert records on the floor.
Khem Birch was one of the key pieces of Canada’s squad during the 2019 FIBA World Cup, and felt playing under Nurse did wonders for his professional development. After spending some time learning from him, Birch now understands why Nurse is viewed as one of the NBA’s top coaches. “Team Canada has a lot of potential, especially with coach Nurse. With the roster we had, I think he did a really good job, and I imagine if we had all our guys I think we would have won the whole thing,” Birch said during an interview on Sportsnet 590 The Fan’s Good Show Monday.
Khem Birch: “It’s a really good benefit and individually it was good as well, to see my potential. I’ve never had a coach tell me to do those types of things… He’s a great guy and down to earth. He’s kind of different from the other coaches I’ve had. He’s really new-school and I see why the Raptors are a very good team.”
Chris Ballard: After almost 20 years, today is my last at Sports Illustrated. Hell of a ride. I got to work alongside childhood idols, collaborate with some of the best editors in the business, and live out a dream. Best job in the world, I always said, and it was. A few thoughts:
March 30, 2020 | 9:08 pm EDT Update
Players-only NBA2K tournament in the works
The NBA is planning a players-only NBA2K tournament that will feature the league’s sharpest video gamers and it will be broadcast on ESPN, league sources told Yahoo Sports. The league hopes to launch the event Friday, with the tournament including some big-name players, sources said.
Chris Haynes: Sources: Each NBA team plans to have a player gamer representative.
Jayson Tatum is luckier than most people nowadays. When he was potentially exposed to COVID-19, the Boston Celtics found their way to test him and the rest of the team. Since returning from Milwaukee, where the team was scheduled to face the Bucks when the NBA shut down, Tatum has been holed up in his house. “It was scary when (Marcus) Smart found out that he had it and he didn’t have any symptoms,” Smart told Jeff Goodman on the latest episode of the Good N’ Plenty podcast. “So it was like ‘wow, any of us could have it at this point.’”
Tatum says one of the hardest parts of the process was waiting for the test results, which were held up by a backlog. Tatum spent a week-and-a-half home in Boston, but unable to see his son. “That was the longest I’ve ever been in the same place as him and I couldn’t see him,” Tatum said. “So that was tough… I was FaceTiming with him every night. I was FaceTiming with him throughout the day.”
“I ain’t dribbled a basketball, I ain’t shot a free throw. It’s like, dang,” he said. “I’ve been watching my highlights, like, every day. I’ve watched every game from this season. I’ve watched rookie year. I’ve watched high school. I’ve watched college. Anything I can find, I just watch it.”
Nets and Barclays Center employees are getting the same checks they would have if they’d worked events as scheduled through the end of May. And it’s not just NBA games, but concerts, Islanders games, college basketball like the A-10 tourney and even graduations. A source familiar with the unions and the overall process told The Post the checks cut could end up totaling an estimated $6 million. Barclays Center also donated 10,000 pounds of food from the arena to City Harvest, the city’s biggest food bank. (The arena’s food and beverage partner Levy helped facilitate the donation).
