Yearly reminder that Leo Rautins is three years older than Jack Armstrong.
Hypotheticals stalling NBA’s ability to form restart plan
While any scenario would require personnel beyond players, coaches and referees — though certain to exclude fans — sources told ESPN that robotic cameras could be utilized and broadcasters could work from remote locations, limiting essential personnel to no more than 35 people at the site. However, players appear unwilling to quarantine without family members present.
“There are so many layers that would have to come into play for [a bubble] to even happen,” Chris Paul, president of the National Basketball Players Association, said last week. “We would have to know exactly what that would look like. There’s a lot of hypotheticals out there.”
Silver, who reportedly has told teams the league plans to crown a champion — whether or not all 30 teams would participate in a re-start remains unclear — released a memo earlier this week, pushing back the opening of team practice facilities until at least May 8. According to the ESPN report, players are yearning to return to their respective facilities, given the restrictions of working out at public gyms or even shooting on anything but personal hoops.
Even when the risk of virus appears to subside, testing remains an overwhelming obstacle. Given the shortage of tests nationwide, Silver is reportedly reluctant to use as many as 15,000 tests — according to ESPN — on millionaires, while hospitals remain packed and unemployment surges. Teams received a memo Thursday, insisting that players shouldn’t be tested unless they show symptoms.
“I do think it would be disturbing to many if there was massive testing that was available to a sports league at a time when people who are in high-risk situations were still having a difficult time getting access to testing,” said Dr. Vivek Murthy, the former surgeon general who has advised the NBA on the coronavirus, told ESPN.
The league needs to make plans for next season, too. If the 2019-20 season were to conclude late in the summer — or if it is outright cancelled — a potential scenario involves beginning the 2020-21 season in December and end it as late as August, potentially increasing the odds that fans could be permitted to attend games again, though social distancing could still be enforced in arenas.
Coronavirus testing remains a major hurdle as US sports leagues eye return | Sport | The Guardian
Harvard researchers say the US should be testing at least a half-million people daily, while the White House estimates about 200,000 tests are being administered each day.
Some teams were sharply criticized for getting their players tested when the pandemic was beginning to take hold in March. The leagues want to avoid a similar blowback.
“The threshold question is the health question. That’s where we’re spending the most time,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said. “The ones that are the most worrisome are the ones that are beyond their control.”
According to Major League Baseball, 3,000 kits would need to be available for players, staff, broadcasters and others for every round of testing to get its season going and keep it going. Even if the NHL and NBA return with just 16 postseason teams on the ice and courts, those leagues would likely require tests for a minimum of 1,000 players and staff. And there’s no telling how often Daily? Every few days? Weekly? the tests would be required to be administered.
With tests still in short supply, that’s not a great look.
“We know that 50% of people are asymptomatic and we need to catch them before they spread the disease,” Dr Vincent DeGennaro, the CEO of rapid-test maker Abacus Pharma International, told Miami television station WFOR this week. “And by testing everybody and having those tests here, we should be able to start to get back to some semblance of normalcy and talk about opening up.”
Some health care officials have said an equally problematic issue is a shortfall of personal protective equipment – masks, gowns, gloves and the like – that are needed by the people tasked with administering the tests.
“We don’t want to use a disproportionate number of testing resources if it’s limited,” NFL lead counsel Jeff Pash said. “We want to make sure that we’re testing people in an appropriate way if we do it and have clear and consistent standards. I think that we very much would take our guidance on that from the medical and public health experts.”
Sources — NBA discusses delaying start of 2020-21 season until December
As ownership support grows for the idea, commissioner Adam Silver and the NBA board of governors continued discussions Friday about delaying the start of the 2020-2021 season until December, sources told ESPN.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the NBA’s thinking and planning has progressed on the idea independent of whether the 2019-2020 season is resumed and completed, sources said.
The NBA board of governors on Friday voted to postpone two May events set for Chicago — the draft lottery and the draft combine. The league hasn’t yet voted to delay the NBA draft on June 25, but there’s an increasing belief that it’s just a matter of time, sources said.
For the NBA, the crux of the idea to delay the start of next season centers on the ability to buy more time to get fans back into arenas for the most possible games next season, sources said.
There are no imminent plans to make a decision on the calendar, and this discussion will continue, sources said.
NBA memo ask teams not to test every player for coronavirus – CNN
The NBA has sent a memo to its 30 teams asking them to not test every player and staff member for coronavirus, a source with direct knowledge of the memo said Friday
The source shared that teams were not allowed to arrange testing for asymptomatic players.
The memo refers to the current testing challenges within the health sector and says that any team-wide testing would not be appropriate at this time.
In March, the NBA had all members of the Utah Jazz and another team tested after Jazz player Rudy Gobert was infected.
The team-wide testing came at a time when communities still had trouble getting kits and testing had yet to ramp up.
New York May Bill de Blasio tweeted: “We wish (the players) a speedy recovery. But, with all due respect, an entire NBA team should NOT get tested for Covid-19 while there are critically ill patients waiting to be tested. Tests should not be for the wealthy, but for the sick.”
Hospitals and laboratories are still having trouble getting supplies to help with the tests such as swabs, reagents and protective equipment. The number of tests nationwide is rising but experts say there is much room for growth.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the league made the decision to postpone the events during a Board of Governors conference call. He noted that while the NBA draft is still set for June 25, sources expect that it will eventually be pushed back.
Wojnarowski also reported that the possibility of moving back the start of the 2020-21 regular season from October to December was discussed since it could conceivably give the NBA a better opportunity to have games in front of fans.
The NBA is beginning to take steps toward potentially finding a way to finish the 2019-20 season. The most notable one is the opening of team facilities in certain cities and states beginning May 8.
While only a limited number of players will be allowed to be present at first, getting players into the team facilities is the first step in what could be a long process of getting players prepared for a return to action.
The fate of the draft lottery, draft combine and draft itself undoubtedly rely heavily on the status of the 2019-20 season.
Since the draft lottery, which was scheduled for May 19, and the actual draft can be done virtually much like the NFL draft was, finalizing the standings and determining a draft order are the primary things that are holding those events up.
The combine, which was scheduled for May 21-24, is a different story, and it may not be able to happen because of the restrictions in place as a result of COVID-19. The NFL was able to do its combine just prior to the banning of large gatherings, but many pro days were canceled, which led to some prospects doing them virtually.
It is possible that all NBA prospects will have to do their workouts and interviews virtually, which could have a significant impact on the draft when it happens.
Sources: The NBA G League is improving some conditions for players starting in 2020-21, informing teams they must secure separate hotel rooms for players on road and elevate the per diem by $15. Players have shared rooms up until now.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) May 1, 2020
NBA one-on-one tournament: Matchups, rankings and picks – Sports Illustrated
Kawhi Leonard (5) over LeBron James (2)
Antetokounmpo is cruising toward his second straight MVP, but these two are the top players for any playoff series in 2020. And it’s not hard to see why. Both have proven their mettle on the game’s biggest stage, and neither LeBron nor Leonard have significant holes in their game. Antetokounmpo’s jump shot is still a touch shaky, and it will be tested again and again in the playoffs. Such questions don’t exist for James and Leonard.
A one-on-one battle would likely be a nail-biter, and perhaps James’ extensive resume should give him the nod here. But it’s difficult to look past Leonard’s sheer defensive dominance. He’s an absolute brick-wall near the post, and his meat-cleaver hands are made to generate turnovers. Leonard is quietly one of the league’s most efficient isolation scorers. His burst to the rim is still elite despite previous knee trouble, and he gets phenomenal lift on his jumper. Consider this one a true toss-up, but ultimately, Leonard will exit the matchup with the NBA’s one-on-one crown. Perhaps he can follow it up with the Larry O’Brien Trophy in late August.
LeBron James Wants NBA to Resume—No One Knows When or How to Do That – The Ringer
Some player representatives aired concerns about the uncertain league calendar and how it will impact players’ financial futures—whether the guarantee dates in their contracts remain the same, how free agency might be impacted, whether another pay cut might be in the offing—and, naturally, about the difficulty of ensuring safety in a sport where you can’t exactly practice social distancing. “I’m surprised, because [NBA commissioner Adam Silver] always errs on the side of caution and doing what’s right,” one anonymous agent told Young.
Whether something looks right can depend an awful lot on where you’re sitting, though. And from where LeBron James is sitting—playing at a remarkable level at age 35, with his Lakers atop the Western Conference standings when play was suspended, and having a real chance to make a run at his fourth ring—canceling the season looks quite a bit less appealing.
A couple of hours after Young’s report went live, James made sure his 45.9 million Twitter followers knew he wasn’t on board with the plan
… and he wasn’t the only one to publicly pump the brakes on cancellation chatter.
During an interview with CNN, Dallas Mavericks franchise owner Mark Cuban echoed previous sunny-side-of-the-street reports and proclaimed himself “cautiously optimistic” that the league will “finish the season,” with the caveat that he imagines the games will be presented solely “for television.” After a conference call with top executives from the 29 other NBA teams, San Antonio Spurs CEO R.C. Buford told reporters that the message relayed was that “every intention is to return to play and to try to create the best environment we can for the league and for the fans, and we are all on board for that.”
NBA Offensive Styles Analysis, Part 4: In comparison to NCAA, WNBA, G League – The Athletic
Though it is certainly notable that top college leagues and the WNBA have seen similar stylistic trends as the NBA over the last decade-plus, it is difficult to draw too much from the comparison given the differences in rule sets and player pools. There remain some differences: Summer League games are shorter, have non-standard foul out and overtime rules and tend to be officiated differently (at least in my observation). And of course, the overall talent level in both environments is far lower than in the NBA proper. Still, these remain the situations where we have the best chance to examine players in NBA-like game situations.
Direct translation of statistical accomplishment is hard enough. As my colleague John Hollinger put it recently, NBA level players tend to put up “video game numbers” in the G League, while Summer League can be a small sample size crapshoot, though it still has a small degree of predictive power for first-year players. The difficulty is exacerbated by the degree to which the NBA isn’t just a higher level of competition but also encompasses a different style of play.
For example, it is often said that evaluating bigs in Summer League is borderline impossible because of the extent to which the play tends to be guard dominated. In examining the comparative data, I would amend that statement to say that G League, and especially Summer League play, aren’t guard dominated so much as guard limited. That minor league play is a higher turnover environment than the NBA should be unsurprising, but the extent to which the additional turnovers accrue to on-ball play types show how and why teammate-dependent scorers might have a harder time shining than as a result of the less ball-secure offensive initiators found at that level.
Fauci, Leading Fight Against Coronavirus, Misses Baseball, Too – The New York Times
“I like all sports,” Fauci said recently, “but I’m really much, much more of a baseball fan.”
After college, medical school and hospital work, Fauci carried his Yankees fandom to Washington. He didn’t care much for the Senators, an expansion team that left Washington to become the Texas Rangers for the 1972 season. He tried becoming a Baltimore Orioles fan, he said, but “that’s tough when you live 40 minutes away.” But when the Montreal Expos moved to Washington to become the Nationals in 2005, Fauci was hooked.
“It kind of triggered in me that kind of fierce affection for a team that I hadn’t had since I used to idolize all the Yankees,” he said. “I just fell in love with the Nats. I don’t consider that I’m being disloyal to the Yankees. I consider it as sort of a replacement for my boyhood love for baseball, which I still have.”
It shows. On Tuesday, Fauci was interviewed by the Nationals’ longtime mainstay, first baseman Ryan Zimmerman, for the team’s website. They talked about potential scenarios in which Major League Baseball could resume play after stopping spring training in mid-March. Zimmerman offered him tickets. Fauci giddily said he had been a fan of Zimmerman’s since he was drafted by the Nationals out of the University of Virginia in 2005.
In a subsequent interview with the The New York Times, Fauci painted a cautious picture about when baseball could return. Although he said sports could provide a distraction for the public, he conceded that the needed testing wasn’t available yet and warned against a premature reopening of the country.
“There are certain parts of the country — in the Mountain region and in the Midwest and in some of the places where there is very little infection and they’re developing the capability of responding — I think they’re getting back to some form of more normality,” he said. “That’s much, much different than putting somebody in Madison Square Garden to play a Big East game.”
New Bulls GM Eversley relishes his time with Raptors, friendship with Ujiri – TSN.ca
“Building a relationship with [Steve Nash] through the federation, Canada Basketball, was critical to my penetration into the US market,” Eversley said on a conference call Friday afternoon. “At the time when I was working with Nike and working with the Toronto Raptors that’s when I got to meet Vince [Carter] and he and I became very close. I stood up for him at his wedding, [I’m] godfather to his daughter. Those are the types of things that relationships can do for you, can help move the needle. I remain very close with Vince today.”
In 2006, then-Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo hired Eversley to be part of his revamped front office in Toronto. A year later, Colangelo brought Ujiri over from Denver. Initially, Eversley was in player development. Ujiri was in scouting. However, it didn’t take long for their roles to intertwine.
Eversley didn’t have much experience in the business but he did possess many of the transferable skills he would need to excel at the job and was eager to develop them. He also wanted to learn from those around him. Ujiri, who came from a scouting background, was one of those mentors.
“At that time he was very willing to learn,” Ujiri said. “He came in under player development and before you know it he was travelling everywhere with me to go scout because he wanted to learn the scouting aspect of the game.”
“Masai’s been like a brother to me,” said Eversley. “He’s clearly one of the sharpest executives in all of sports right now. He really introduced me to the art of scouting and how to truly evaluate talent and I owe him for that.”
Both execs credit Colangelo, not only for giving them that initial opportunity but also for showing them the ropes and empowering them in their roles. It’s not a coincidence that there are Colangelo disciples thriving throughout the league today, including Ujiri and Eversley, as well as 76ers VP of basketball operations Alex Rucker and Raptors VP of basketball strategy Keith Boyarsky – who started in Toronto’s analytics department under the former Raps GM.
“Bryan is the guy who actually took a chance on me,” said Eversley. “When I first went to Toronto he really taught me what the NBA is all about. He taught me about the rhythm and the flow of what an NBA season looks like, what the playoffs look like. My time in Toronto was unbelievable. Here’s a kid who was 3,000 miles from home and got an opportunity to come home and work for his hometown club. Bryan gave me that opportunity and I’m forever indebted to him for that.”
