The 2019–2020 NBA season is about to restart on Thursday, July 30. Seriously.
I find it hard to believe too. State-level response to the COVID pandemic has been irregular at best, with the Northeast faring the best and the South faring the worst (this is my surprised face ?). I’m not even going to address the federal response to COVID, as the failures are constant, embarrassing, and covered in detail elsewhere.
So the idea of national sports, with a troupe of players, coaches, doctors, cooks, administrators, and other employees hopping from city to city multiple times per week, seemed like it was destined to end in massive exposure to the Coronavirus (see the MLB disaster for an example). However, the NBA took the issue seriously, and because of that, we’re having an NBA season.
If you aren’t a huge NBA fan, you probably were not aware of this. For many, the past five months have been a series of Blursdays, and the NBA season is normally wrapped up by now anyway. But maybe you are now looking at that social calendar and find it empty. So maybe it is the time to latch onto an NBA team and enjoy this micro-season. There are eight regular-season games left, followed by the playoffs. It’s like hopping into soccer for the duration of the World Cup: it’s exciting, it’s short, and it’s a superstar-driven league, so it is easy to find someone to love (or hate).
What Did the NBA Do Differently than MLB?
The NBA quarantined its players, coaches, and support staff in the Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, FL. Players were given the choice of reporting or opting out for the season. Some opted out. For those who opted in, they were flown to Florida and put into isolation for two weeks (see link above), with COVID tests administered regularly. If they had the virus (such as Nikola Jokic or Russell Westbrook), they were isolated and treated for at least 14 days.
All of the players on the participating teams have been kept within this “bubble” and will remain there for the duration of the season and playoffs. Since then, there have been no new cases of COVID reported among the players.
So Who Is There?
Every team that was within 8 games of a playoff spot was brought to the bubble. These teams were then set up with an 8-game schedule against each other, after which the regular playoffs will occur. (For the teams which were outside of the playoff picture, the season is over.)
There are 22 such teams, with 13 in the West versus 9 in the East. In order of record (most wins to least):
The East: Milwaukee Bucks; Toronto Raptors; Boston Celtics; Miami Heat; Indianapolis Pacers; Philadelphia 76ers; Brooklyn Nets; Orlando Magic; Washington Wizards (Wizards are 5.5 games out of the 8th slot)
The West: LA Lakers; LA Clippers; Denver Nuggets; Utah Jazz; Oklahoma City Thunder; Houston Rockets; Dallas Mavericks; Memphis Grizzlies; Portland Trailblazers; New Orleans Pelicans; Sacramento Kings; San Antonio Spurs; Phoenix Suns (Portland is 2.5 out of 8th, and Phoenix is 6 games back)
Someone Notable Isn’t on That List
The Warriors are out of the playoff picture. Seriously. The bill finally came due for Golden State after a multi-year, multi-title run of absurdly good health, fortuitous timing when injuries did occur, and an annoying Durant-sized salary cap increase. Durant is off to Brooklyn and Golden State will likely pick up the pieces next year and again be an unholy, small-ball terror. But this year, they’ll be watching the NBA Finals from the couch.
Who Should I Care About?
That’s a personal choice, with a lot of factors. Among them: geographic proximity; good storylines; aesthetics; play style; greatness at an individual, team, or historic level; wildcard!; underdogs. Let’s address each of these to help you narrow it down.
Geographic Proximity
I don’t have a lot to say here. If a team is close to where you live, or where you grew up, or has come to represent some nebulous part of the country, you may find yourself with some regional pride.
Good Storylines
The Raptors got over the hump last year and won the NBA Title. Kawhi Leonard immediately decamped for Los Angeles, and everyone expected Toronto to crater. Instead, they are second in the East and have the third-best record in the NBA, and have a sorta-real short at being back in the Finals this year. They are very good.
The Lakers drew in Lebron two years ago, and then promptly unloaded almost their entire team to bring in new guys to work with him. So now he has Anthony Davis, one of the most fun-to-watch NBA players of all time. And they have the best record in the West. And they’re the Lakers, so you already love them or hate them.
Gregg Popovich and The Spurs are in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time in like 23 years. It will take a lot to bounce their way, and they must overcome their lack of LaMarcus Aldridge, their best scorer, who is out for the season with shoulder surgery. Pop is the best NBA coach of all time, so if you want a cool story, watch to see if the Spurs can extend his record streak of playoff appearances.
The Denver Nuggets are running some lineups with Nikola Jokic at point guard. For reference, he was their center last year, and the general memes were about him being a pasty dough man with passing skills like Magic Johnson and physical fitness like Regind VelJohnson. Jokic has slimmed down and this team was hella fun before. Now, they should be a wild ride.
Aesthetics
Again, this is a personal preference. The NBA has the best jerseys, and their alternates are generally quite striking (compared to the trash camo jerseys in baseball, this is not a hard task).
I’m personally quite drawn to the green / white minimalism of the Milwaukee Bucks. I also think that the New Orleans Pelicans and Toronto Raptors have great colors and unique mascots.
The Miami Heat utilize hot pink, neons, and pastels better than anyone else with their Vicewave collection.
The City Edition jersey for the Utah Jazz looks like a sunset.
Play Style
The thing to know about the NBA is that it is very fast, and games are often decided by one or two scores. So going in, you should know that a lot of possessions end in a score, and that teams are trading off scores throughout the game. It isn’t football, where Coach Jimbo McTug opts for a field goal at the end of the first half and then tries to sit on the three-point lead for the next five hundred hours of your life that you’ll never get back.
Because the expectation is a game where each team scores 100 points, you instead find yourself watching for defensive stops and costly turnovers that disrupt this back-and-forth scoring. You also tend to watch for how offenses exploit physical mismatches (such as a Lopez twin guarding Steph Curry, or Kyle Lowry guarding Lebron, or James Harden guarding anyone), how defenses adapt, and how a single carom can end a season.
I don’t want to suggest that the enjoyment of the NBA is only in the finer details. This isn’t baseball, where a box score may hold greater enjoyment than the actual game. Even ignoring what I said above, you also have to realize that a 26-foot shot is cool as hell, a dunk is cool as hell, and watching actual giants sprint full speed and then pirouette around defenders is sublime. Basketball is speed and strength and superhuman agility, and it is played by people who have to duck to get through doorways.
Anyway, a lot of teams have gone in on the Rockets / Warriors strategy of layups and 3-pointers. You’ll find this very noticeable with the Bucks, who often run offensive schemes with all five players beyond the three-point line (when you have Giannis at point guard, you give him space to drive).
The Pelicans like a fast pace and have Zion Williamson at center, so they play inside-out some when they run half-court offense, but generally they want to get to the rim before the defense is set up.
The Rockets like to dribble… and dribble… and dribble… when James Harden is running point. These dribbles usually end with a 28-foot 3-pointer or Harden being fouled (usually both). When Westbrook is running point, you see a lot more aggression and more midrange jumpers, since Westbrook is below-replacement-level as a three-point shooter but is an agent of chaos when he gets into the lane. You’ll find yourself rooting for or against the Rockets any time you watch them.
The 76ers like to run their offense through their center, Joel Embiid. They are also the tallest team in the league, and their point guard is a 7-foot guy who has taken under ten (!) career three-point attempts. We will cover the 76ers in more detail in the Wildcard! section below.
Greatness
Lebron is, at worst, the fourth-best player of all time in a group that includes Michael Jordan and Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The Lakers are very good, but you’re kinda going to watch them because it’s the Lebron show.
Kawhi Leonard is supremely gifted, and the Spurs losing him to injury during the Warriors heyday was the single most offensive thing about that Warriors dynasty. He’s healthy, though, and won a title last year with the Raptors and may win one again this year with the Clippers.
Giannis Antetokouonmpo is the Bucks’ point guard. He’s going to be very good for a very long time, and his Bucks are setting fire to the rest of the league. Their +/- is over 11 (this means that they are scoring, over the course of the season, 11 more points than their opponents per game. This is a very high number.). If they don’t win the title over either the Lakers or Clippers, I’ll be stunned.
The Bucks have not won a title since 1971 (a team that featured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson). There are several teams in this 8-game season finish who have never won a title at all.
Wildcard!
This category should be called the 76ers. They could string together some games and win the title, or they could get swept in round 1 of the playoffs. They are absurdly talented and yet sometimes feel like they’d rather be doing something other than playing basketball. I think it is a fool’s errand to guess at what they do with the rest of the season. What they do nightly, though, is deliver wild moments, insane plays, insane mistakes, and inject some needed troll vibes into the proceedings (Embiid is the NBA’s preeminent troll. Sorry, Rajon Rondo and Chris Paul.)
If you only watch a couple of games, watch them versus the Raptors or Bucks.
Underdogs
I’d say that anybody looking up at 8-seed has a very poor chance to advance in the playoffs. Further, I’d say anyone not on this list (Bucks, Lakers, Clippers, Raptors, Celtics, Heat, Rockets) is an underdog for the Finals. That leaves you with a lot of underdogs! You can find an underdog story pretty easily. Bear in mind, though, that this isn’t the NFL. Playoffs are best-of-seven. The better team almost always wins out.
When, Where, How?
The season starts on Thursday, July 30 (https://www.espn.com/nba/scoreboard). The games will be on ESPN, TNT, ABC, and NBAtv, and any that are not on these channels will be available via NBA League Pass. Even if you are a cord-cutter, you can stream the games via the TNT, ESPN, and NBA websites or streaming apps.
There are, by my count, some 10 games just from Thursday through Sunday night that are on national TV that will be worth watching.