Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Or at least that’s what they say. Once something in your life returns that was gone, there is a honeymoon period. But after a while you realize you didn’t really want or need it back. That’s just one of the reasons why the NBA shouldn’t finish this season.
Look, no one really knows when the NBA is coming back. Everything from bubble cities to Disney World has been mooted. Sources told Brian Windhorst that It would take three months to play out the remainder of the regular season and the playoffs. We know how LeBron James feels about all this.
Saw some reports about execs and agents wanting to cancel season??? That’s absolutely not true. Nobody I know saying anything like that. As soon as it’s safe we would like to finish our season. I’m ready and our team is ready. Nobody should be canceling anything. 👑
— LeBron James (@KingJames) April 30, 2020
But just because basketball can return doesn’t mean it should. In fact, the NBA shouldn’t finish this season. Here are five reasons why.
Why the NBA shouldn’t finish this season
1) The play won’t be good
The first two months of the NBA season aren’t great to watch. Sure, there are moments. But by and large, players are still finding their groove and gelling with teammates. By the time Christmas Day rolls around two months later, play has reached a much better level. Let’s not forget, this comes after training camp, preseason and a summer where many players work on their games constantly.
That’s not happening today. When players get back into team facilities, most of them won’t have played any sort of game against another person in more than a month. The teams can go through six weeks of conditioning and practices before restarting games and the level of play would be at a preseason level at best.
2) The asterisk champion
You can’t take rings away, but whatever team that wins the title will deal with a lot of blowback. You will celebrate if your team wins it. And if they don’t win, chances are you refuse to acknowledge the team that does. The NBA Championship comes with a big asterisk if the season gets played.
3) NFL training camp > NBA Finals
Most predictions have the NBA season concluding in late August or early September. That would be extremely unfortunate for Adam Silver and company as they would find out just how far behind the NFL they are. Assuming training camps and preseason football happen as currently scheduled, this would see them go up against the NBA Finals.
The optics of the NBA going up against the NFL preseason and losing would be terrible for basketball. And let’s be realistic, people aren’t going to care about the Los Angeles Clippers facing the Milwaukee Bucks when Tom Brady is in Tampa Bay, the Green Bay Packers are imploding under the weight of Aaron Rodgers and roster moves are happening.
4) Summer league visuals
No venue has been chosen, but Orlando has been mentioned numerous times. You remember the Orlando Summer League? This is basically what NBA games would look like if they come back. Now teams probably won’t wear practice jerseys, but even then, could you take a playoff game seriously if it looked like this:
5) We all like the thought
The NBA coming back sounds great. We like the thought of being able to watch games again. However, the thought of something doesn’t always match the reality when it happens. How many times did you want to date someone only to find out that person was awful once you started going out?
When we think of the NBA coming back, we picture high-intensity playoff games in full stadiums where moments seem magical. The reality is that we’re going to get sloppy matchups in practice gyms with no buzz. Unless that can be fixed, the NBA shouldn’t finish this season.
