Inside the bubble: NBA season to resume July 30th in Orlando

This Is Why We Play: The NBA Returns! 

Attention! Attention! The NBA season is about to resume! Yes, you heard me right after a five-month drought, we’re about to get our first dose of professional sports. It’s been a long time coming, like a really long time, but at long last it’s finally happening. So, how did the NBA manage to resurrect their season from the dead? Great question and it deserves an answer.

The answer itself is simple. After numerous attempts to try and save their season, attempts that all failed mind you, it was decided that creating a “bubble,” would essentially be the best hope. However, it wasn’t as easy as you would think. So, what does the bubble mean? To put it simply it means that 22 teams will travel to a city, in this case Orlando, and will use the same facilities. Is this a risky move? Absolutely, it is! I mean, you are putting the health and safety of professional athletes at risk, after all. In my opinion I believe the NBA knows the risk and to them it’s worth the reward in the end.

Twenty-two Teams and Seeding Games

As I already mentioned, twenty-two NBA teams have made the journey to Orlando, where they will spend the next three months in a so-called, “bubble.” Three months. It sounds like an eternity, doesn’t it? While in reality it isn’t if you factor in that fact players will be away from their families and limited to the campus, it may seem like a lifetime. At least to them. Basically, all the players will have is each other. Sort of like being in a foxhole with your buddies fighting for survival.

Let’s not forget that I also said the players, coaches, staff will all be using the same facilities. That means the same hotel, same court for all games, same workout facilities, etc. in the hopes it will keep players safe and quell any outbreaks of Coronavirus. Now, what does this mean for the teams involved? It means lots of games. Most teams have already gone through practices and from there moved on to scrimmages, designed to act as a mini training camp of sorts. Scrimmage games would consit of ten-minute quarters which would not only help players get back into game shape, but serve as a barometer to see where they were after not playing games since March.

Scrimmages games don’t count. They merely serve as exhibition games. The games that will truly count, will be the seeing games. Seeding games will be serve as the restart for the regular season. Yes, I know it may sound confusing, but when you break it down it actually makes sense. Believe me.

How the Seeding Format Works

Like I said, when you break down how the seeing format works, it’s not very confusing. Seeding games will begin today, July 30th and end on August 14th. A play-in tournament will be held on Aug. 15-16 if necessary, meaning the NBA Playoffs would then begin on Aug. 17th. Seeding games will count towards regular-season standings and stats will count towards regular season-statistics. Three courts will be used. Sanitization will occur between each game, meaning at least a four hour wait period between games.

You might be asking yourself: Well, what time do the games start? Games will start as early as 12:30 p.m. Eastern on weekdays and 1 p.m. on weekends. Any games involving West Coast teams will start as late as 9 p.m. Eastern. Teams will each play one back-to-back contest. What about safety? I mean, let’s face it with this format there could be a greater potential for injury. While true, concerns extend far beyond injury. Some players have already had to leave the bubble and have immediately been quarantined upon return. The NBA has also required all players and coaches to wear masks while on campus and during games players will sit in chairs six feet apart from one another.

Putting all of that aside and focusing on the schedule perhaps the biggest “wild card” we’ll call it, is the potential play-in tournament. This won’t affect every team of course, but for squads in say eighth-place, ninth-place, tenth-place or worse, the play-in tournament will be a major factor. My guess would be an eighth-place team and ninth-place team would play each other with the winner advancing. Unless one team is far enough ahead of another in the standings. In that case, the need for the tournament would be negated.

The NBA Finals 

Of course, everyone knows the goal of this “bubble” experiment, will be for the NBA to crown a champion. That’s the endgame. Since the playoffs won’t start until Aug. 17th and will keep the traditional format of years past where each series is seven games, the league is hoping to have a champion crowned by Oct. 12th. Honestly, that’s quite a stretch. I’m not quite sure how that’s going to happen unless a handful of series wind up going the distance.

That’s just me, but then again, I’ve been wrong before. I just can’t fathom that happening unless every series goes to seven games.

Do we need sports to return? 

Yes. That is the simple answer to this question. We’ve been craving it and I think there’s no better time than now for sports to return in as safe an environment as possible. Our world has changed dramatically in the last five months and the return of the NBA will be a welcome return to some semblance of normalcy.