The NBA Awakens?

About 2500 years ago, the Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu reminded everyone that:

The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

About a week ago, the NBA took a first – and halting – step toward reopening by issuing a set of guidelines by which teams might assemble – sort of – for workouts and training.  The caveats that came along with those guidelines were many:

• Only in jurisdictions where stay-at-home orders had been relaxed.
• No more than 4 players at a time.
• No coaches or assistant coaches.
• No scrimmages.
• Players and staff must always be masked and maintain 12-foot separation.

Now comes word that the NBA will allow teams that can meet all those guidelines to open practice facilities on May 8^th.  The Atlanta Hawks play in a state where stay-at-home orders have been relaxed so they are eligible to begin the reopening process.  A few new guidelines have been added to the mix:

• Players may not use practice/training facilities other than the team facilities.
• Players must take a resting EKG and a troponin test before starting training activity.

The NBA has been shut down for 58 days as of this morning.  If teams eligible to take these first baby steps do so later this week, there will have been a 60-day interruption to this NBA season, but a real problem exists for the league:

• There are plenty of teams that do not have practice facilities in areas where stay-at-home restrictions have been lifted.  That means there could be some sort of competitive advantage bestowed on certain teams purely based on geography and that is not something that the league – or any league for that matter – would want to be the case.

Stay tuned…

The NBA 2019/2020 season is a mess, and nothing is going to make it other than a mess.  Perhaps the league should look to make some chicken salad out of this chicken spit and take the time to make a major revision in its scheduling.  If I could wave my magic wand, here is how I would get the NBA into a new cycle:

• Be sure that whatever culmination there is to this season and its playoffs, that culmination is over and done by 20 September.
• Open training camp for the 2020/2021 season on 20 November
• Opening Day games will be on Christmas Day – 5 weeks after training camp opens.
• The regular season is a perfectly balanced 58 games – every team plays every other team twice.
• Those 58 games can be fit into a schedule that ends on 1 June.  That is 157 days in which to play 58 games so “load management” should not be a problem.
• Playoffs can extend through 15 August (about 75 days) so plenty of action can be accommodated.
• Then the players would have an off-season of 15 August to 20 November (at least 3 months) before they begin again.

So let it be written; so let it be done…

The death of Don Shula earlier this week spawned several expressions of “The Mount Rushmore of NFL Coaches”.  If you go by wins alone, the Fantastic Four would be:

• Shula
• Halas
• Belichick
• Landry

That would neat and tidy; surely all those gentlemen have reason to be on the short list for consideration here.  However, it does leave some questions unanswered:

1. Why doesn’t Paul Brown’s 7 NFL Championships merit recognition here?
2. Same with Vince Lombardi’s 5 NFL titles in a 7-year span?
3. Joe Gibbs has more playoff wins that Halas, Brown or Lombardi; should he be there too?  [Aside:  Gibbs also had more opportunity to coach playoff games in the 1980s than Halas, Brown or Lombardi had when the NFL playoffs were “one-and-done”.]

For the record – as if anyone really cares – here would be my Mount Rushmore in alphabetical order:

• Bill Belichick
• Paul Brown
• Tom Landry
• Vince Lombardi

If someone wanted to replace Tom Landry with Don Shula, I would not offer huge resistance.  On the other three, I would be adamantly opposed.

Finally, here is a historical perspective on a previous NBA “issue” from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“The Pistons weren’t bad sports for not shaking hands with the Bulls after Chicago ended Detroit’s two-year title run in 1991.

“No, the Bad Boys were simply ahead of their time when it came to social distancing.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports ………