NFL
By: Greg Rector
This years NBA season with it’s 72 game compressed schedule thanks to COVID-19 is proving to have been a mistake. Simply put 72 days between the end of the “Bubble.” playoffs and the start of this season combined with the compressed schedule has seen an alarming number of injuries that has impacted every roster. These factors have to be addressed. What has happened to so many players has diluted the on-court product, and turned this exercise into the ? Injury Games.
Yes, the NBA playoffs are always a war of attrition, and injuries have impacted other playoff runs. The sheer scale of this year’s injury list though is massive. Let’s not avoid the reality of why the NBA players are dropping like flies this year. Their bodies are breaking down by not having a normal off season and playing almost every other night since the December 22nd 2020 start to the season. I saw this coming from a mile away when they announced this schedule. For me this a complete failure on the part of the NBA, who have prided themselves on being progressive and taking player safety seriously. You know what they took even more seriously this year instead? The TV deals. Revenues were hurt of course with the pandemic as it was for every major sport in 2020.
WHY 72 GAMES:
The easy answer of course here is that by only losing 10 games from the regular season the revenue losses wouldn’t be as impactful. I fully understand that business fact. However in order to get those games in and have the playoffs return to a more normal timetable, the regular season was compressed into a sprint, compared to a normal season where it’s a bit more of a marathon. Never before have the teams had to play as many back to back nights so often. That has led to the increase in injuries, plain and simple. 422 man-games lost by Orlando, followed by 360 for Houston, with only a small percentage of those numbers due to COVID-19 protocols. The impact across the league was obvious when games had to be delayed because a team couldn’t suit up the minimum 8 players required at times, or they had to scramble to get someone in uniform from the G-League to get enough bodies. The talent drop off in so many of those games was obvious and is a factor into why there were so many more blowout games than we normally see.
In order to keep the networks and advertisers happy the NBA simply put too many games, too close together. Unlike baseball and their marathon 162 game season, basketball is contrary to the old myth a CONTACT sport. If you ever played the game the wear and tear of going up and down the hardwood on the body is a known factor. Now add in the collisions from a moving screen, taking a charge etc… and injuries are bound to happen. The problem is you exacerbate things like hamstring and quad injuries when a tired body is in a game. Overuse injuries are preventable and one way to prevent what has happened was to have a reduced schedule.
WHO MESSED UP:
The league, the players association, and the networks messed up. Because we were still the throes of the pandemic when this season began, there’s no way they should have agreed to this many games. You have 29 opponents in the league, play each other twice for a total of 58 games, and then have the playoffs. Imagine that was the schedule, do you think we would have seen the number of All-Star players missing playoffs games as we have had? With Kawhi Leonard about to miss Game 5 against the Jazz (and possibly the rest of the series) that makes 8 All-Stars who will have missed playoff games. When it comes to playoff basketball we as fans are being deprived of seeing the best versus the best. The marquee matchups are missing far too often and that’s also why we have seen more blowouts in this years playoffs than ever before. Will a Suns vs Sixers NBA Finals be anywhere near as intriguing if Joel Embid has to miss games with his meniscus tear? What if Chris Paul’s new COVID-19 situation impacts his health? James Harden’s hamstring injury has drastically impacted the Nets, along with Kyrie’s injury, the league will be deprived of having the “Big Three,” in the Finals most likely. You know what it means by not having a Finals with a New York versus an L.A. franchise? Less viewership, which in turn means smaller revenues. Face it the country won’t be as interested in smaller markets like Utah or Phoenix facing Milwaukee or Philadelphia. You won’t get those casual viewers, that would have switched on a Brooklyn Nets versus Los Angeles Clippers Finals.
The need to recoup losses from 2020 should never have been a make-it-up as soon as possible endeavor. All parties involved should have realized it wasn’t possible, and more importantly they were risking exactly what were seeing for what matters the most, the health of the guys responsible for all that revenue. The fact that all the parties didn’t put the health of the players first is a sad state of affairs. Kyrie Irving and Danny Green wearing walking boots still might have happened, but the chances of it actually happening could have easily been reduced. That’s the sad part folks, the almighty dollar once again ruled the day. I blame all the parties involved who set aside common sense.
As always you can find me on Twitter @GregCowboys
