Asterisk champion after injury-wrecked playoffs: Why greedy NBA getting what it deserves | Opinion
There was an excuse for the farcical nature of the NBA playoffs a year ago, at least. It was called a global pandemic. The league removed travel from the delayed, shortened season, threw every playoff team into a bubble in Orlando and hoped for the best.
Virtual fans and cardboard cutouts cheered as the Lakers and Heat floated through the bubble to the Finals, L.A. winning in six. It felt like a mirage. Wait. Did that really just happen? The trophy should have been in the shape of a giant asterisk.
A year later, right now, it’s worse. A bigger farce. A nationally televised embarrassment.
This is what happens, when — hell-bent to recoup revenue COVID stole — the NBA plows ahead with a near full (72-game) season, with travel, despite a short offseason and not enough rest and recovery time. Players predictably break down. Injuries steer the season.
And you get a playoffs like this.
You get the no-pedigree Phoenix Suns back-dooring into the Finals (for the first time since 1993) by winning the West by default over the L.A. Semi-Clippers who were missing essential star Kawhi Leonard, felled by a sprained knee in the previous round.
“We’d be moving on [if not missing Leonard],” said Paul George after Wednesday night’s elimination. “This series would have been a lot different.”
That sounded less like a sour grapes than a simple fact.
Over in the East finals Atlanta and Milwaukee were tied 2-2 entering Thursday’s night’s Game 5 in a series, typical of this postseason, being steered by injuries. Hawks star Trae Young (right ankle) was questionable Thursday, and Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo (left knee) was doubtful.
Yes, injuries are a part of the game, and of any playoffs.
But not like this.
This is the toll, the result of a truncated offseason that cheated players of needed rest and messed with their body clocks. A season delayed even further and shortened to say 54 games would have helped, but that would have made less the spigot of TV and other revenue.
Besides Kawhi, Jaylen Brown, Mike Conley, Anthony Davis, Joel Embiid, James Harden, Kyrie Irving, Donovan Mitchell and Chris Paul all have missed games injured this postseason.
In all, 11 all-stars have missed games, five more than the previous postseason record.
As ESPN NBA analyst Israel Gutierrez said on our podcast this week: “The NBA can’t wait for this season to be over. It’s not like the league is going to stay like this. It’s been worse than the bubble because of all the injuries. This champion is not going to be the most representative champion.”
The NBA rushed the season and forced teams to fit 72 games into around a 150-fay window, after a short training camp. Some teams had to bunch four games in five days.
LeBron, in a tweet, verbatim: “They all didn’t wanna listen to me about the start of the season. I knew exactly what would happen. I only wanted to protect the well being of the players which is the PRODUCT & BENEFIT of OUR GAME! These injuries isn’t just ‘PART OF THE GAME.’ It’s the lack of PURE RIM REST before starting back up. It’s insane.”
Two thoughts:
1) I believe LeBron has coined the new phrase, “rim rest.” Kinda like it.
2) LeBron knows. He is dead-on right
We can find a bright side, sure. why?
There will be a newness to the NBA Finals, an antidote to the old complain about a predictable league where nobody really ever comes out of left field and wins.
Phoenix has never won a championship, not in 53 seasons. And Paul, CP3, is in his first Finals.
Milwaukee is after its first title since 1971. Kareem Addul-Jabbar was 24.
Atlanta won as the St. Louis Hawks in 1958, but never since moving to ATL in 1968.
So, yeah, the Larry O’Brien Trophy is going to end up in new hands.
Another asterisk will stain it, though. Last year the pandemic was to blame. This time it is corporate avarice.
This story was originally published July 1, 2021 at 12:45 PM.
