Latest on NBA comeback plan, and one reason it would be unique. And Nunn on his rookie wall
With the remainder of the 2019-20 NBA season expected to be played at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex near Orlando if play resumes amid the COVID-19 pandemic, empty arenas will help make it a unique game experience.
No fans means no crowd noise. No fans means the television audience will be able to hear more of the on-court chatter between coaches, players and even referees unless other audio is piped in to simulate a crowd.
“I know I don’t want everything that we normally say to each other going out,” NBA referee Scott Foster said Tuesday during an appearance on NBA TV. “But normally we’re all in a professional manner out there. But it is going to be different. There’s going to be some assistant coaches that we haven’t really heard from before sitting in the second row that we’ll be able to hear now, so there’s going to be some adjustment there. And then I think we’re going to need to really talk about and analyze what is OK for the public to hear and how we’re going to go about our business.
“But it’s definitely going to be a different thing. I’m definitely looking forward to it. I think it’s going to be a really unique experience for the players, referees, coaches, everybody that’s going to go through this.”
Foster, who is in his 26th season as an NBA referee, added that “I just don’t even know what to expect at this point because this is just such uncharted territory.” But Foster said it could be “very similar” to officiating games at the NBA’s Orlando Summer League, which was closed to fans and took place on the Orlando Magic’s practice court before the circuit was shut down in 2017.
“I think that the intensity being much higher than a summer league, I think we’re going to find that we’re going to hear and see some things that are going to jump out at the public on TV,” Foster said on NBA TV. “And we’ll deal with that as it comes. But I don’t anticipate players behaving any different than they do during the game and I definitely don’t think we’ll be behaving any differently. But I think there will be some outside people that we never knew were participating because of the loudness of crowds at the arenas.”
While the NBA is hoping to complete the season in Central Florida by the end of July, the league is still uncertain about the regular season and playoff structure it will use. It’s also unclear if all 30 teams will be included in the season’s resumption, but the Miami Heat figure prominently in every scenario being considered as the team with the fourth-best record in the Eastern Conference.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban told ESPN on Tuesday that he suggested a plan to the NBA league office that would include all 30 NBA teams playing five to seven regular-season games before a play-in tournament to determine the final two playoff seeds. Cuban considers it a must for all 30 teams to be part of the resumption of the season because of the financial impact of fulfilling local television contracts.
In Cuban’s proposal, the top 10 teams from each conference would qualify for the postseason and be reseeded based on record. There would be two play-in matchups (either single games or a best-of-three series) — seeds 17 versus 20 and 18 versus 19. The winners would advance to play the 15th and 16th seeds for the final spots in the playoff bracket, and the playoffs would then proceed with best-of-seven series.
But according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the idea of 30 teams participating in the resumption of the season has lost momentum for various reasons, including the fact that fewer teams in the NBA bubble means fewer people to spread the coronavirus and eliminating the teams at the bottom of the standings would mean less bad basketball upon the league’s return.
The NBA has a call with general managers set for Thursday and a board of governors call on Friday, which are expected to provide further clarity on the plan to resume the season. The season has been suspended since the night of March 11.
▪ Heat forward Andre Iguodala has returned to South Florida after spending most of the league’s shutdown with his family on the West Coast, where he has a home in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The only two Heat players who are currently not in South Florida are Jimmy Butler and Solomon Hill. Both are in California.
The Heat began allowing players on May 13 to participate in voluntary individual workouts at the team’s AmericanAirlines Arena practice facility.
KENDRICK NUNN TALKS
Kendrick Nunn’s first regular season in the NBA has been one of the biggest surprises in the entire league. The 24-year-old rookie went undrafted in the 2018 NBA Draft, then spent nearly all of last season in the NBA G League before signing with the Heat in the final days of the regular season.
He turned heads in the NBA Summer League with the Heat, then kept doing so in the preseason and into the regular season, when he became an unlikely starter for one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference. For the first few months of the season, the guard never slowed down.
Nunn finally crashed into the proverbial rookie wall in January, and then again in February and March. Although his rookie season was an unabashed success and he easily could finish second to Ja Morant in voting for the NBA Rookie of the Year Award, his time running up against those walls taught him what he needs to do heading into Year 2.
“After a first successful season in the NBA, one thing that I want to improve on going into my second season is how I maintain my body to be able to be prepared for that full season,” Nunn said Tuesday as part of a question-and-answer session on the NBA’s Twitter page. “There was a time in the season when I felt my body had hit a wall and that was just because I wasn’t used to playing that many games, so going into the second season I will definitely take more care of my body and maintenance, and be ready for the full season.”
Nunn fielded a handful of questions from fans, ranging from topics like “The Last Dance” to his preferred nickname. The largest chunk tackled his unlikely path to becoming an NBA starter.
“I believe all areas of my game improved while I played in the G League, but one specifically that I noticed was my pace on the offensive end with the ball in my hands, coming off screen and rolls, and things like that,” Nunn said. “Being able to make plays, and making the right reads of pick and rolls — I think that year in the G League helped me improve my game.
This story was originally published May 27, 2020 at 1:47 PM.
