The NBA pulled off an impressive feat over the summer, making it through the end of its 2019/20 season and the entire playoffs at Walt Disney World without any COVID-19 cases among players. However, now that the NBA has left its bubble for the ’20/21 campaign, Sixers head coach Doc Rivers is among those worried about whether or not the league will be able to replicate that success, per Tim Bontemps of ESPN.
“Man, I tell you I’m very concerned if we can pull this off,” Rivers said, pointing to COVID-19 outbreaks in college football and in the NFL as ominous signs. “The difference in football is they play once a week. They have 1,000 players, so when you miss three or four players, you can still get away with it.
“If we miss three or four players, we’re in trouble, especially with the amount of games (we play). We’re playing three to four games a week. So if one of our guys, or two of our key guys, get the virus and they miss 10 days to 14 days, that can be eight games. In a 72-game season, that can knock you out of the playoffs.”
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- After the Thunder and Celtics created record-setting traded player exceptions this offseason, some executives around the league are wondering if the TPE rules aren’t functioning as intended and should be tweaked, says Sean Deveney of Forbes.com.
- Former NBA first-round pick Jarell Martin has signed with the Sydney Kings in Australia’s National Basketball League, sources tell Olgun Uluc of ESPN. Martin, who appeared in 184 NBA games for Memphis and Orlando, will replace newly-retired big man Andrew Bogut in Sydney’s frontcourt, Uluc notes.
- We’re less than two weeks removed from the 2020 draft, but that doesn’t mean it’s too early to look ahead to the 2021 offseason. Bobby Marks of ESPN (Insider link) previews what to expect next summer, Danny Leroux of The Athletic projects which teams will have the most cap room, and John Hollinger of The Athletic identifies some star players worth watching leading up to the ’21 offseason.
- Just days after having his draft rights traded to the Knicks in their Austin Rivers deal, Belgian power forward Axel Hervelle has announced his retirement, as Emiliano Carchia of Sportando relays. Hervelle, 37, never signed an NBA contract after being drafted 52nd overall in 2005.
“We’re less than two weeks removed from the 2020 draft, but that doesn’t mean it’s too early to look ahead to the 2021 offseason. ”
No offense Luke, but yes it is too early for that. I love off season moves as much as anyone, but let’s try to play at least a few games before we worry about the next round of massive player movement.
Lol give him a break these are unprecedented times and normally wed be well into the season by now. So much negativity around here. If you dont like it no one is holding the words to your face. Just move on!
Where exactly was I being negative? I had a polite disagreement with a statement. If you cannot handle that, maybe you should move on.
So the Forbes writer agrees that the TPE loophole does no good, at least pertaining to the original spirit that intentionally created it .
It’s based on small-market resentment, nothing natural or appropriate.
Well way to go large-market Boston. And Presti continues to dissemble a contender to great advantage.
Basketball needs to scrap the whole system they have for player acquisition. It made sense 40 years ago when the league was on the verge of collapse. The whole having to match salaries to make a trade is comical. It should really be based on talent
Why they are at it. They need to focus more on player development. There are probably a lot of players that could become quite serviceable if they had better coaching on a lower level.
I would like to see the arguments made over which different talent rankings to use, but what I most like in this salary-based system is that salaries are made public. It’s no fun if it’s all in secret.
Talent rankings systems are tricky. Baseball has mountains of numbers. It is tough to find one that fully describes a players skills. The all vary.
In Baseball, all salaries are known. It is a bit more fun in Baseball because there are no baked in salaries. There are no elevator clauses. It makes the off season more fun. There is a lot of speculation over Non-Tenders, and Salary Arbitration.
The whole issue with a talent-based acquisition is who determines a player’s value and how is it determined? Two teams might have wildly different valutions of talent. You can’t have people assign values as you’re going to run into biases, but having a computer just look at stats and come up with a value is going to cause players to be wildly overrated/underrated.
Good old baseball does have its numbers. I did enjoy the last WS; maybe the game can come back; the way it was presented, there was little sign of (the alleged) discord.
Major things in basketball have to be overlooked to quantify it, like who got scored on; who should have helped; setting a pick, or avoiding it; or seeing a teammate avoid, but still having the heart to go hard anyway like PJ Tucker.
Forbes article was good, I agree with it as well, Was not the intended use for the TPE – Should be re-explored and quickly
Basketball has to have macro lenses on here…. One of its biggest positives is being able to give the ability for any team to turn things around in 3-5 yrs thru a logical re-build….
That doesnt happen in baseball and you see the new fan totally reject the system and say No way No How, NO thanks – The greatest thing NBA has going for them is HOPE from all Fanbases from sea to shiny sea, they’ll be pushback.
Baseball is a tougher sport to master. So, it is much harder to rebuild a team. That is why the Minor league system is so much stronger. And you know what, there are far more Professional Baseball teams than Basketball teams.
New fans arent buying the Rays tendering Morton and Looking to save money on Snell….. and really they shouldn’t- Baseballs killing itself and it saddens me to watch
The competitive balance is what makes the NBA thrive- Mil Por PHX No Atl fans from small markets feel involved thru the whole process and those are just to name a few-
Silvers wayyy too smart to let it slip towards that direction – Baseball needs to mock basketballs structure, better Rev sharing, MIN cap 100% (at least 80 mill), Max cap (200 mill), and maybe some form of bird rights to allow big market to at least sign their homegrown past the cap
Presti continues to disassemble what could have been one of the great teams of our time, although I’m not sure what he is dissembling. Maybe the fact that his team will continue being bottom dwellers for the foreseeable future, but that should be obvious to anyone who isn’t an OKC fan.
Is it still contending if you are contending for the 9 or 10 spot
That’s why I feel the current NBA structure of player development should be dismantled. The
Every time a team does a smart thing other teams get upset
Axel Hervelle held out for years just so he could retire as a Knick.
Either that or he realized that retiring to a chocolate shop in Belgium would probably be preferable to being a Knick.