And so it begins.
This month, the NBA’s great experiment in saving its past season begins seriously, with 22 of the 30 league teams traveling to the virus-affected state of Florida to restart the 2019-20 season at Disney’s blocked ESPN Wide World of Sports complex, colloquially referred to as the bubble.
But a deadly pandemic may not be the biggest concern for season 2.0. Judging by recent interviews with reboot participants, this distinction could lie in the legitimacy of the firm itself.
The problem is probably the result of some philosophies of Big Aristotle himself, Shaquille O’Neal. In May, O’Neal had this to say about an NBA reboot: “To try to come back now and make a top playoff as a player? Any team that wins this year, there is an asterisk. They won’t get respect. “
It doubled on a podcast in late June. “It’s an asterisk, babe,” said O’Neal. “It will count for some people, but I’m not changing my opinion.”
O’Neal likely meant an unofficial asterisk, not a literal black mark next to the prospective champion, but that didn’t stop players, coaches and managers from loudly rejecting the idea, giving bored journalists copious quotes about how this will be “the hardest championship you can ever win” (Giannis Antetokounmpo) or how it will guarantee a “harder than normal asterisk” (Frank Vogel) or that the winning team “deserves a gold star, not an asterisk “(Doc Rivers). Some, like the owner of Houston Rockets, Tilman Fertitta, have simply stated that there would be no asterisk: “Whoever wins this championship does not have an asterisk. … Why should there be an asterisk? “
What would you expect them to say? No one going to Orlando wants the final champion to be shot down, surely not those players and teams that are likely to remain standing in the NBA finals.
And while the hyperbolic speeches about the sacrifices that this bubble experiment won’t require from the participants don’t have to be respected by anyone – I’m watching you, Doc “Use Navy SEALs as an example” Rivers – opponents with an asterisk are right. After a four-month layoff, teams are essentially asked to switch from the training ground to the playoff intensity in 45 days, give or take. Nobody knows what it will mean for injury or team chemistry. In addition, they are asked to do all this separately from their loved ones and from the comforts of home, although the resort accommodations make grumbling difficult.
But while all Bubble teams will compete in the same circumstances, this in itself is a departure from the norm. The site of the neutral site, although necessary, yields the traditional home court advantage. Higher seeds earn through their hard work during the grueling regular season, giving the lower seeds an implicit advantage by leveling the playing field. Once you start to deviate from the norm in ways that avoid tradition, you create fertile ground to talk about an asterisk.
However, the current pro-asterisk argument is not strong, on par with the argument line surrounding the block samples. The surprising aspect of the anti-asterisk crowd, however, is their insistence, their declarative certainty. There will not be an asterisk. Borrow from Shakespeare: they protest too much, he thinks. And why are they protesting? Since they are terrified, an asterisk will still be affixed.
Let’s try a mental experiment. If, say, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Milwaukee Bucks meet in the final and both teams are healthy, perhaps the talks about the asterisks remain marginal, within the limit of those fans that their team has failed. But imagine if Giannis Antetokounmpo or LeBron James are positive for Covid-19 and must lose the finals. Do you seriously believe that anyone other than the most convinced of homers would argue that the chip was legitimate? Imagine that all five of the Los Angeles Clippers were beaten by the virus, allowing the Lakers to make it to the final. Was their path artificially easy? There is only one correct answer and all asterisks know it.
With the cases of Covid-19 spreading across the country and in the air of Florida, as dense with coronavirus as humidity is, Commissioner Adam Silver has already said that a significant burst inside the bubble would lead to a second arrest, which is a scenario that nobody wants to see. But a blow to competitiveness in the form of a pernicious, if not widespread, outbreak is a very real – and very legitimate – fear that everyone involved will have to feed, even if they don’t go out and admit it. The Bubble experiment offers no guarantees, as many have pointed out several times. This does not include any guarantee of legitimacy.
So is this all an exercise in futility? Not at all. But those who launch pre-emptive attacks against a hypothetical asterisk would have served better by concentrating their energies where they can do the best: enforce the agreed bubble rules. At present, the complex is more of a Wiffle ball than a real bubble, but other than the implementation of the unreasonable precautions I have supported – and indeed, where would the league still find movement-activated laser turrets? – the NBA and the Players Union should be commended for the serious attempt. This is not a gimcrack effort.
But as the tired cliché goes, a chain is as strong as its weakest link, and three months is a long time that a group of young millionaires are expected to come out to their hotel rooms in Florida playing Booray or Canasta or Go Fish. Do you want a try? The team that Amar’e Stoudemire plays for in Israel was fined because Stoudemire twice broke the quarantine rules for going to a Tel Aviv mall.
Twice!
In a mall!
Heck, even Phoenix Suns’ Devin Booker couldn’t resist a break from Arizona stay orders in April to take a drive with Kendall Jenner in his Maybach. (There is not a single part of that sentence that I liked to write.)
“My confidence is not exceptional,” said Damian Lillard, the Portland Trail blazer guard, when asked about players who followed Orlando’s rules. “My security is not exceptional because you are telling me that you will have 22 teams full of players following all the rules? When we have 100% freedom, everyone doesn’t follow all the rules. “
But if the players, coaches and managers really want to avoid having their efforts marked with an asterisk, they will have to do more than say it in existence. It will take a personal sacrifice. Willpower. Altruism. They will need to monitor their own, so no one’s behavior corresponds to the truculence of a Karen without a mask in a Costco. Perhaps an outbreak will prove inevitable despite everyone’s best efforts. But everyone who participates in the Bubble has an acquired interest in doing their best not to compromise those efforts.
Because in the end, those who talk to journalists will not be the final determinants if the champion is queued with that feared asterisk. Circumstances will.
