You can definitely argue that the NBA works as intended. The league’s COVID-19 guarantees – euphemistically known as the health and safety protocols – wreaked havoc on several teams in the first half of January. The Sixers played a game with only seven healthy bodies. Four matches were postponed within three days. The Mavericks had four players who tested positive for the coronavirus, and their training facility was subsequently closed. The Wizards canceled the practice on January 12 for reasons related to COVID-19 – after the Heat, 76ers and Celtics all had to enter the protocol after last week’s games against Washington. The shortened schedules are a feature – not a mistake – when it comes to the 2020-21 season. By playing a pandemic, the league needs to be extra diligent to avoid a huge outbreak, thus isolating even people who have just been exposed to someone else with the virus. This is an obvious practice that, even if it is frustrating, tries to minimize the risk so that it can still be played into.
I’ve written once about the fickle nature of this season, how difficult it was to distinguish the real from the complicated factors. That was before teams like Heat and Sixers had to play games with thinned-out grids due to COVID-19 games. While the NBA is going through a deadly period in American history, it’s the truth: the product is no longer the priority.
It’s tempting to examine the NBA’s guidelines for contact tracing – a conversation after the game has more weight than the previous 48 minutes? Players may have guests in their hotel rooms? —But these rules were drawn up in collaboration with doctors and scientists to find out how far on the list the league can go without falling over. It’s also tempting to find the ‘easy’ solution to make it safe this season. Maybe a bubble, other than a long-term one, is too expensive and too harmful for mental health. Maybe a break in the season – except that it does not necessarily mean less exposure to the virus due to the lack of closures across the country. Maybe the players should be vaccinated – except that the optics of fit athletes get the knife while grandparents are still waiting for a website to load, it will be difficult, even if the offer does not appear to be a problem.
The trick that is easiest to come up with when trying to figure out what the NBA should do next is to think that the league is one or two steps away from the door to normal. The board of governors and players’ association updated the rules on January 12 and said players should not go anywhere except for team activities and essential activities, which means they must stay at home or at their hotel if they are not playing. Players may also not see anyone outside their immediate circle for the next two weeks. This is the kind of closure that more people need to do, except for the whole part of the job. It’s a non-bubble version of the bubble, and the rules are so restrictive that Thunder keeper George Hill was blunt when asked about the new standards: ‘If it’s that serious, we might not play not.’
The league obviously wants to finish this season. The financial interests, in the eyes of both the owners and the players, are too big to wait things out, play fewer games or cancel the season. As a country, we have long since come to the point of making thousands and thousands of deaths a higher priority than money, especially as governments at every level refuse to help and / or encourage people to stay at home. For the NBA, it means getting back on track through the 2021 season by coming to 2021. If the league can only avoid a catastrophe, depending on the definition of the term, the next season will start after a proper summer holiday, with fans likely to be back in the stands and the financial health of the league in many ways back on track. what it was before. the pandemic. Getting through ’21 also means weird outbursts, increased injury risks for short teams playing already compressed schedules and guys like Joel Embiid complaining publicly about the league’s decision making. Nothing would make the ’20 -21 ‘campaign’ normal ‘to wait until things were significantly safer.
This is not to say that there will not be some fun games in the meantime. Or that LeBron will not still be responsible for highlights every night. Or that players will submit it. But no one can pretend that this season is about preserving what happens between the four lines of the track. What we look at may look like the NBA, but it’s not. The bubble has at least allowed players to focus on basketball. What we’re watching now are regularly abbreviated schedules, guys who have not played for nine months, and fan-less games that have sucked a lot of the spirit out of what makes this sport great, all happening against the backdrop of a rising death toll because our institutions do not have the guts to take a hard line against the virus. Calling this season a joke would be an insult to the players who still spend every ounce of energy they have on the floor, but it would also be foolish to pretend that it’s anything but a glorified bridge. to the real NBA.
There are no good options here. In a functioning society, the league would probably not have come back and the government would close matters while helping people financially. This, of course, is not the case. To work through means to accept that the virus will infiltrate, and that means the league’s acceptance must constantly twist itself to keep games going while trying to avoid a complete, reckless transfer.
I’m not even upset about the league. Businesses were left to fend for themselves during this pandemic, and that is the result. But the effects are felt on the floor. Maybe the game will feel more fulfilling by the time the playoffs turn around and more people get the vaccine. The decision of the league and the players to continue through this landmine-laden pandemic means, for the time being, relying on the protocols to keep matches on schedule. Unfortunately, while these strict protocols can keep the season going, the longer the league lingers in this reality, the less the games feel like the NBA.