The NBA announced Friday that NBA teams will be able to open their facilities and allow teams to start holding group practices. Players who wish to participate must test negative for COVID-19 every day they want to enter the facility. This could prove to be beneficial for all teams. This leads me to believe that the league and the Players’ Association are making ground in their negotiations for next season’s start. I wonder what the rest of the off-season looks like now that NBA teams can open their facilities and hold practice.
Beneficial to last year’s bottom feeders
There is no doubt that opening facilities will help with the teams that were not invited to the Disney bubble especially since we are about six months removed from when those teams last played. Teams like the Warriors would be able to start ramping up their players who have had an extended period of time off from the game. This could lead to a higher quality of basketball when the season eventually does start. There is some doubt that there will be a pre-season schedule of games. Not having a pre-season would mean that teams wouldn’t be able to get their players to warm up and find their groove and it could likely lead to some bad games at the start of the season.
This would also give teams who have recently made moves to their front offices. Teams like Houston and Philadelphia where they have new coaches which could bring new systems. This provides teams with the ability to have their coaches come in and start teaching their new system should they change it.
Negotiations Ending Soon?
This announcement could also mean that the two sides are slowly coming to an agreement on when to start the season. The league allowing facilities to open could be a result of these negotiations. IF that is the case then I could see the season starting somewhere in between the target dates for both sides. The league wants to start the week of Christmas and understandably so because it would get them more money and Christmas is their holiday so they clearly want to keep that. The players want to start on MLK day and if you want to read more about that here is an article I wrote on that. The two sides have been negotiating all week about next season and we could be coming to an announcement on a start date soon.
This announcement leads me to believe that the league is close to getting the winning end of the bargain. Hypothetically speaking if the league is firm on their start date then the Players’ Association could be making demands to make the deal work in their favor. To me, this is saying that the players are going to approve an earlier start than MLK day but they would be getting some benefits in return. That is why the NBA teams can open facilities.
Season of Load Management?
If the league does start its season sooner than MLK day then we could very well see a lot of stars on a load management plan. Especially on teams that played deep into the playoffs. This could prove to be beneficial to player health. Players coming off a long bubble performance have only had about a month off. Less if you were a finals team. Some players might want some more recovery time and if there isn’t enough off-season time to recover, we could see some recovery time implemented into the season to make up for it.
With a shortened season pretty much a lock this year, we could see a schedule similar to the 2011-12 season where we see a lot of back to back games and in some cases back to back to back. Players on a load management plan would sit out at least one game in a back to back. In a shortened season could be detrimental depending on the teams’ depth.
If a team gets off to a hot start because they weren’t invited to the bubble and had ample time to recover and rest it could prove almost impossible for a team that has restrictions on its stars to make up those lost games in the standings. There is almost no doubt that having a good bench will prove to be a deciding factor this season.
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