To say that All-Stars are dropping like flies through the second round of the National Basketball Association Playoffs would be an exaggeration. Injuries are, after all, part and parcel of competition. On the other hand, there can be no discounting the correlation between the quick turnaround to the current campaign and marquee names being sidelined with greater frequency than had previously been recorded.
To be sure, strict COVID-19 protocols leading to the forced sidelining of otherwise-healthy vital cogs haven’t helped. The regular season was littered with instances of lineups suddenly changing due to the failure of players to adhere to safety measures designed to prevent the spread of the virus. The good news is that the league managed to avoid the worse-case scenario of an outbreak in light of its unbending application of rules. The bad news is that it likewise had to deal with the offshoots.
Under the circumstances, it’s not without irony that spectators have slowly been allowed entry into hoops arenas even as the principal subjects of their attendance are hard-pressed to stay on the court. From Anthony Davis to James Harden to Kyrie Irving to Joel Embiid to Donovan Mitchell to Mike Conley, Jr., required time away from the team has led to repercussions. And the same will hold true for Chris Paul and Kawhi Leonard, arguably the brightest lights of the postseason thus far.
There’s no value to rehashing the reasons only two and a half months separated the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons. Franchise owners and honchos, beginning with commissioner Adam Silver, firmly believed that the schedule, already truncated, represented the best chance for the NBA to maximize revenues. And, lest the players forget, they, too, signed off on the rapid reopening of competition.
At some point in the not-too-distant future, there will be a reckoning of the costs and benefits of the soon-to-be season that was. Meanwhile, fans and favorites alike have no choice but to accept reality. And while the current version of the product seems diminished relative to previous iterations, it’s also fair to contend that the league’s stakeholders can’t have everything, and that something is better than nothing.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and Human Resources management, corporate communications, and business development.
