NBA and NHL look to restart and salvage seasons as coronavirus looms large

Two of the leagues hardest hit by the global pandemic were undoubtedly the National Basketball League and the National Hockey League.

On March 11, Utah Jazz centre Rudy Gobert told team staff he wasn’t feeling well and was taken to a nearby hospital. What happened next set in motion a cascade throughout the professional sporting world as the NBA cancelled the game, then postponed the season, and the NHL followed suit almost immediately given they share many arenas and venues.

By the end of the week virtually every other major sporting league, from the English Premier League to the PGA had been put on ice. Tournaments were pushed back, and some seasons, like Global Rapid Rugby and the XFL, were axed altogether.

To many, March 11 seems like an age ago with life in stasis as we slowly start planning society’s eventual return to normal. But with countries still grappling with outbreaks, most notably the US, the end appears a way off.

Both the NBA’s commissioner, Adam Silver, and the NHL’s, Gary Bettman, have given multiple statements on resuming their 2019-20 seasons, and they are rightly vague. Silver and Bettman are speaking in lockstep it seems, neither giving timetables for returns, or eluding to potential scenarios if and when they try to pick things back up again.

Of course, this has not stopped pundits from predicting, analysing and forecasting endlessly. When it comes to the NBA, rumours are flying and Silver recently said in a media conference call that “everything is on the table”.

Will the NBA ever play another game in China?

Many insiders close to the NBA are reporting league officials are looking at a number of neutral venues, including Las Vegas and the Bahamas. Why, you ask, would the league be so keen to return to action (even without fans) as quickly as possible? The NBA is an US$8 billion enterprise and as Silver admitted in the conference call, “our revenue in essence has dropped to zero”.

Silver got the players to take a pay cut already (25 per cent), funds that will be held in escrow starting on May 15. For players like LeBron James, this is a lot as he makes US$37.4 million a season, but it also hurts players at the league minimum, which is about US$582,000. You can bet your bottom dollar when those cuts hit bank accounts, the resumption of the season will take on a different tone when it comes to the athletes themselves.

The NHL, albeit much smaller financially speaking, is facing all the same issues and conundrums. What will games be like without fans, and what will a truncated 2019-20 season look like if play resumes? One of the most popular theories flying around the NHL is the league could return to a 24-team play-off style format.

Much like the NBA, this presents another challenge, how to maintain the legitimacy of the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy and the Stanley Cup. These are two of the hardest titles to win in the professional sporting world. Last year the Toronto Raptors needed 24 play-off games to win, after a gruelling 82-game season in which they earned home court advantage and needed some buzzer-beating heroics from Kawhi Leonard to cap it all off.

Each round in the NBA and NHL play-offs is a best-of-seven series, showdowns that can take over two weeks to finish. If either league went to a 24-team play-off format, it would most likely feature best of three series.

Last year in the NBA Conference semi-finals, the Raptors lost the first two of three games to the Philadelphia 76ers. The St Louis Blues, who won the Stanley Cup last season, lost the first two of three games in the Western Conference Finals to the San Jose Sharks. This presents the NBA and NHL with a legitimate concern: how do you keep the integrity of the league in tact when the norm has gone out the window?

Pushing the season back (both the NBA and NHL should be in play-offs right now) also impacts the eventual start of the 2020-21 season. Players need time to rest after such long campaigns, and asking them to jump right into a regular season, or a truncated play-offs for that matter, sounds like a breeding ground for injuries.

Hosting games in one venue for both leagues would solve the issue of the US-Canada border, currently closed to non-essential travel, and recently extended for another 30 days. The NBA has one Canadian franchise, the Raptors, and the NHL has seven. But this means any alternate site would have to house either 30 NBA teams and their accompanying staff members, or 31 NHL teams. That is a logistical nightmare in any city in the world.

We can also thank tennis star Novak Djokovic for raising another interesting point. The Serbian star and No 1 ranked player in the world said he is opposed to being vaccinated for Covid-19, and doesn’t want to be forced to take anything against his will. The questions, conundrums and problems appear endless at times, a daunting task to even fathom undertaking.

The NBA and NHL find themselves between a rock and a hard place. Salvage their 2019-20 seasons and risk the health and safety of their players and staff, or continue to bleed out financially. These are difficult decisions nobody wants to make, but the clock is ticking, and the buzzer will soon go off.