New plan: With a mask on, it’s a four-pointer.
NBA teams that would be affected by altered playoff schedule – Sports Illustrated
LOSERS
Toronto RaptorsToronto head coach Nick Nurse was masterful in the 2019 postseason, morphing Toronto’s rotation and strategy depending on the opponent. The Raptors sagged off Giannis Antetokounmpo in the Eastern Conference finals then smothered Stephen Curry in the Finals, a credit to Nurse’s malleability and attention to detail. The more information Nurse gets, the more he adjusts. A shortened slate of series’ would mitigate Toronto’s advantage.
There’s also the matter of the Raptors’ playoff history. Toronto has been dreadful in Game 1’s in recent seasons, and Nurse’s squad even dropped Game 1 to the Magic in the first round of the 2019 playoffs. Perhaps the trend is more of a coincidence than anything. But with a slate of youngsters on the roster–led by Pascal Siakam–the longer the series the better.
Mark Cuban, NBA disagree on coronavirus testing plans for teams
Asked Wednesday via email whether the Mavericks planned to open their practice facility on Friday and if not, did they have a timetable, Cuban replied to USA TODAY Sports, “No. If we can’t test anyone, I don’t see how it happens.”
He also told the “77 Minutes in Heaven” podcast, “The problem obviously is that because we can’t test people, then we can’t assure anybody’s safety, whether they’re basketball players or anybody else. Even though we can try to take all different kinds of precautions, it’s just not worth it, particularly when our guys are staying in shape and they’re going outside and shooting on outdoor hoops and working out in various ways. So I just don’t think the risk is worth the reward.”
Cuban’s Mavericks are a playoff team, and if the season resumes and they maintain their spot in the Western Conference, they would be the seventh seed with a first-round series against the Los Angeles Clippers.
There is a very real possibility that a private company could provide adequate testing for NBA players and essential personnel, but that comes with an optics issue.
Last week, the U.S. conducted 1.6 million coronavirus tests, and according to Caitlin Rivers, an infection disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, 3.5 million tests per week is the goal.
Would the NBA restart its season with plenty of tests for its use while testing kits lag for the general public?
This is not to douse optimism about the NBA returning to finish this season, but to offer realism. League executives continue to have theoretical discussions about what a return would look like, even getting down to nitty-gritty details such as the size of a team’s traveling party.
NBA officials, staffers worry about psychological effects of return to league activities
Several general managers and athletic trainers pointed to a number of players — though they say it’s not a large percentage — whom they would describe as “germophobes.” These team officials say there are several executives and other league staffers in the same position.
“I’m one of them,” one veteran front-office executive for a team in postseason contention told ESPN.
Said one Eastern Conference general manager: “I’m not a germophobe, and I’m afraid.”
Several team officials said there are players and staffers on their respective teams who fit that “germophobe” description, though none felt comfortable sharing their identities — and none faulted them for being extremely cautious on that front.
But multiple Western Conference athletic training officials referred to this psychological impact as a powerful added stressor for some players that could no doubt inhibit their ability to perform, even if the NBA was able to create an ideal environment at some point in the near future.
“Some players will have an easier time breaking through that, and other players will have a real challenge with that,” one Eastern Conference athletic training official said.
Mental health was once a taboo subject in the NBA, though that has changed in recent seasons. A memorable turning point came when former NBA All-Star Metta World Peace publicly thanked his psychologist after the Los Angeles Lakers won the 2010 NBA title against the Boston Celtics.
In regard to the current psychological challenge that players would face if play is resumed, World Peace said it is no small obstacle.
“People are affected when humans are affected, because we’re only people,” World Peace said in a phone interview. “… If one of your significant others passed away, you might mourn for a year or whatever. Now, you got 50,000 to 60,000 people passing away all over the globe — that’s going to mess with anybody. You just never know who it’s going to affect. On a certain level [guys will think], ‘What if I get it? What if I don’t?’ You just never know who’s it gonna affect.”
NBA, players to hold coronavirus conference call | Macau Business
NBA commissioner Adam Silver and the head of the players union, Michele Roberts, will host a conference call on Friday as the league attempts to map out a possible return to action, ESPN reported.
The call between Silver and NBA Players Association executive director Roberts is an opportunity for players to air concerns and quiz basketball chiefs about how the league may resume.
The NBA has been in shutdown since the coronavirus pandemic brought sport to a standstill in mid-March, forcing the suspension or postponement of every professional league in North America.
Since then, the NBA has been exploring ways for the sport to resume.
Friday marks the first day that teams in the league will be allowed to reopen practice facilities for limited workouts, which will take place under strict safety protocols.
A handful of teams have indicated they plan to take advantage of the green light to return to practice facilities but many franchises have said they intend to wait.
Los Angeles Lakers head coach Frank Vogel said Wednesday he is in no rush to reopen the team’s El Segundo training base, believing that any resumption of the NBA was still a distant prospect.
“There’s a competitive balance element to this that I personally am not really all that concerned about,” Vogel said.
“I think we’re still a long way away from returning to play.”
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is also lukewarm about returning to practice while there remained so much uncertainty about the testing of asymptomatic individuals for COVID-19.
“Even though we can try and take all different kinds of precautions, it’s just not worth it — particularly when our guys are staying in shape and they’re going outside and shooting on outdoor hoops and working out in various ways,” Cuban to
Cavaliers step cautiously as some NBA teams return to practice – Chicago Sun-Times
Even if the NBA doesn’t resume this season, and at this point no one knows for sure, the Cleveland Cavaliers believe it’s time to start getting ready for the next one.
“Any minute that we can get working with each other is beneficial to us,” Cavs coach J.B. Bickerstaff said Wednesday.
Cleveland is one of a handful of teams planning to reopen practice facilities on Friday so players can work out as states across the country ease the social-distancing restrictions put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought sports to an abrupt halt in March.
Bickerstaff, who took over one of the league’s youngest teams in February after John Beilein stepped down midway through his first season, said the Cavs have been in contact with local and Ohio officials to ensure they’re following the proper protocol to protect personnel.
Only four players will be permitted at a time inside the team’s facility in Independence, Ohio, which has been closed for nearly two months. The Cavs intend to hold two-hour sessions during which only one player and one developmental coach — wearing gloves and a mask — will be permitted at the same basket.
Bickerstaff said safety is paramount. The Cavs’ medical staff will take the temperature of every person before entering the building, and there will be areas off limits. Also, the team intends to designate and mark basketballs for each player so there is no cross-over and everything will be meticulously cleaned.
“The league is recommending that they keep 12 feet between one another, so you’re there basically rebounding for a guy and passing to a guy,” Bickerstaff said during a Zoom conference call. “No one is being pressured to do anything. If people feel uncomfortable doing this, it’s not mandatory for them to show up. We’ve got some guys on staff that are willing to do it.”
Some NBA Camps Are Reopening, But Is That Fair To Teams In Coronavirus Hot Spots?
Dallas Mavericks owner Cuban, speaking to ESPN Radio’s Freddie & Fitzsimmons, framed the issues in terms of who players, coaches and trainers trust with their lives.
“Seriously. If you’re a player, who do you trust with your life?” Cuban said. “If you’re a coach or a trainer or, anybody for that matter, that’s essential personnel for getting something back together, do you trust the hotel that we’re going to stay at to keep everything safe — the technology they’re using, the protocols they’re using?
“Who do you trust with your life?” Cuban repeated. “That’s a big question to ask somebody, but we all make decision like that every day.”
All sorts of questions are going to come up on a massive NBA players’ call Friday being organized by the Players Association and the league office. And the smart money says that there will be a heck of a lot of Twitter and Instragam activity on players’ accounts before the weekend begins.
Teams opening practice facilities for volunteer workouts will be able to designate six assistant coaches or player development personnel to provide supervision of player workouts on the courts, a source told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Head coaches will not be allowed to participate or observe the player workouts.
The workouts will be voluntary and socially-distanced (everyone stays at least six feet apart), but it is one small step toward getting the season re-started … and most NBA fans will take something rather than nothing.
CJ McCollum on facilities opening up: ‘I am worried’
“I am worried like the rest of the world, but I like that it is optional and I’m pleased with the caution, structure and measures the Blazers organization has put in place to ensure the safest environment possible for all parties involved,” McCollum told Yahoo Sports. “I get the measures [the league is] taking, but you have to think at some point when there are drastic measures that need to be taken, ‘Is it really worth it?’ It’s either safe or it’s not.
“ … And let’s just be honest, man, it’s not like it will be the first time players got gym access outside of the team’s facilities. Some people have been working out, if we’re being honest.”
Despite feeling uneasy about working out at the team facility, McCollum — who is also vice president of the National Basketball Players Association — intends to go in on Saturday to evaluate if it’s possible to safely execute a workout with so many restrictions.
“The issue is you can go to your practice facility, but there’s all these stipulations,” McCollum told Yahoo Sports. “You can’t use certain stuff, can’t do certain stuff. Now they’re talking about you might have to be 12 feet away from your strength coach. How are you going to lift 12 feet away from somebody?”
NBA moving forward with extreme caution | The Sumter Item
“The biggest goal is to have the confidence of the players and the staff that they can enter the facility safely,” Utah general manager Dennis Lindsey said.
Simultaneously, everybody wants to play, and everybody wonders if it’s safe to play. It’s like all parties involved know that a major misstep now could doom any realistic chance of playing anytime in the next few months.
“Our task force at the league is studying how do we get back to playing basketball again, following the data, looking at every possible model,” Magic CEO Alex Martins said this week while addressing an Orlando-area economic forum.
And opening the practice courts is only Phase One.
Phase Two, who knows when that will come. It’s not imminent.
Games are not close. Getting players back into facilities is not a precursor to games being played, it’s more about keeping them out of public gyms and playgrounds that are starting to reopen. Positive tests during individual training or practices could delay or destroy plans for games.
There are some reasons for hope. The NBA is still working toward a plan to test players if the season resumes. It has exchanged data with leagues across the world, and there have been some success stories. Baseball is being played again in South Korea. MLS teams returned to fields Wednesday for workouts with restrictions. Germany’s top soccer league has allowed players to return to training facilities, even though some staff and players have tested positive.
It’s the NBA’s turn to start seeing where it stands.
“There’s been this unprecedented collaboration and communication among scientists across the world right now,” said Dr. John DiFiori, the NBA’s Director of Sports Medicine. “What’s going on sports medicine sort of parallels that at a much different level of course. But there is an awful lot of that going on across the world right now. It’s at least daily communication in one way, shape or another with colleagues across the world in all these different leagues, because we’re all learning from each other.”
The Ripple Effects of the Basketball Shutdown Reach Americans Abroad – The Ringer
Two of Craft’s American teammates on his Italian club, Aquila Basket, didn’t hesitate; they flew home as soon as possible. Craft had a personal holdup. He didn’t think it would be safe for his then-13-month-old baby to travel in the middle of such a frenzy, so he and his wife bunkered down in Trento, six hours north of Rome.
“Another factor was we were obligated contractually [to stay] at the time,” Craft said. “If we left and couldn’t come back, we forfeit the rest of our contract and salary. So we just didn’t think it was worth the chance.”
While quarantining, the Crafts settled into a routine with their son, but outside things were getting worse. The death counts were rising both at home and in Italy, and lockdowns were tightening locally. Craft’s wife was stopped multiple times by Italian police on outdoor runs and told to go home. A few weeks into their decision to stay, the scales started to tip the other way. A return for basketball in Italy looked increasingly unlikely, and the risk of staying there outweighed the risk of losing any money.
“We were like, ‘OK, we’ll leave and just take our chances,’” Craft, now in Ohio, said. “‘If I need to come back, I can come back by myself and not put my wife and son through it.’”
The flight from a deserted Rome airport to New York had just 37 adults, three kids, and one dog in the main cabin—Craft counted. He and his wife thoroughly wiped down their seats and settled in for the transatlantic trek. After landing at JFK on March 28 and boarding a flight to Detroit (this one had only nine people total), Craft breathed a sigh of relief once he saw initial reports that the Italian league’s season was going to be canceled. Two weeks later it was official. Craft’s salary had been cut by 20 percent—a pay cut that the team told Craft was instituted across the franchise in order to protect players and employees.
As basketball calendars continue to get pushed back across the globe, the uncertainty hasn’t diminished, and the lasting effects on the nomadic players, teams, and leagues—including the NBA—only grow. Craft considers himself lucky, in large part because he and his family are safe, but also because he had decided before the season that this would be his last one playing basketball; the 29-year-old is planning to return to Ohio State to finish medical school.
COVID-19: Could the NBA play a bubble tournament in Canada? – Raptors HQ
Could Canada Host an NBA Bubble Tournament?
Canada is the NBA’s second home. The Toronto Raptors are here! The Vancouver Grizzlies were here… and basketball was invented by a Canadian! We’ve had the NBA Draft, NBA All-Star Game, and the NBA Finals here. Oh, and the NBA Champions reside here too, lest you forget!Canada makes sense as an NBA bubble host for a few reasons:
We have fewer per-capita cases of COVID-19 than our neighbours to the south, and although it’s still early, evidence points to our “curve” flattening faster than that of the U.S.
Our healthcare system, while still experiencing unprecedented stress levels, is ahead of the U.S. in terms of testing and available PPE for frontline workers at this time.
Our universal healthcare system, while far from perfect, is better positioned to help more people than the current U.S. system.
All in all, while any one person dying from this is too many, Canada is doing fairly well in its efforts to contain and stop the spread of COVID-19.That might cover the health side of things, but do we have the facilities?
Does Canada have the facilities for an NBA Bubble Tournament?
We don’t have a Disney World, or anything like it. But we do have a more traditional facility that might make sense: The Paramount Fine Foods Centre in Mississauga.The PFFC obviously has an NBA-sized court, as it’s used for the G-League and Raptors 905. Naturally, it’s a smaller venue in terms of capacity than your standard NBA arena, but that’s probably actually a good thing since there’ll be no fans in attendance.
A court isn’t enough, of course. The PFFC also has a practice court, plus a large fitness centre, not to mention an outdoor court and of course all kinds of space for other recreational activities. It also has meeting rooms and a lounge.
Now, I don’t know for sure if that’s enough. The NBA would probably prefer a facility where multiple games can be played at once, and the players might want something more upscale in terms of locker rooms and facilities. But we’re already so far removed from what’s “wanted” and what’s “needed” that I’m sure they could make it work.
A look back: Chris Bosh’s stellar career with the Toronto Raptors – Amico Hoops
He excelled in multiple areas, whether it was posting up, taking opponents to the rim or shooting from the perimeter. Bosh flashed his potential during his rookie season, and according to NBA.com stats, he ranked fifth among rookies in points per game (11.5) and first in rebounds (7.4).
Bosh only went up after his rookie season, and perhaps his best year with the Raptors was his last. He scored a career-high 24.0 points per game and grabbed a career-high 10.8 rebounds during the 2009-10 season. Bosh averaged a double-double three times in his career — all of them were with the Raptors.
An 11-time All-Star, five of Bosh’s appearances came when he was in Toronto. He didn’t have much playoff success in Toronto, failing to get past the first round in 2007 and 2008.
Playoff success came later in Bosh’s career, when he joined Dwyane Wade and LeBron James in Miami during the summer of 2010. Bosh was pivotal for the Heat’s back-to-back titles in 2012 and 2013. He was their defensive anchor in the middle, and he led the team in blocks per game (1.4) during the 2012-13 season.
Along with his defensive presence, Bosh spaced the floor on offense. According to Basketball Reference, he shot 53.8% from deep during the 2012 playoffs and 40.5% during the 2013 postseason.
After James returned to Cleveland in the summer of 2014, Bosh had his best individual season as a member of the Heat. The production of his Toronto days returned, as he scored 21.1 points per game and grabbed 7.0 rebounds during the 2014-15 season.
Vince Carter’s greatness, impact still unfairly misunderstood – Sportsnet.ca
Paul’s question – posed by way of a Twitter poll — was simple sounding enough: Did Vince Carter reach his potential?
The results? Out of 1297 votes, 74.5% said he fell short.
I disagree. A man who played 22 seasons – more than any player in NBA history — and ranks 19th on the all-time scoring list did not fail to reach his potential. This is not a case where the sample size isn’t big enough.
If anything, despite all evidence, we failed to properly understand what his potential was. We got dazzled by the dunks and missed some of the details.
First, the case that he did fall short which – to save everyone a lot of time – basically boils down to this:
He had one season that was as good as any other great player in NBA history. That he was only fleetingly able to play at that level again suggests that his other 21 seasons weren’t the true measure of the man or the player.
I guess that makes sense?
No, just kidding. It makes no sense. But hey, it was a hell of a year.
To review: After bursting onto the national scene in his lockout-shortened rookie season (1998) with a flurry of incredible dunks, Carter built on it during the 1999-00 season (when he won the dunk contest and helped the Raptors to the playoffs for the first time) and then turned in a masterpiece in his third year at age 24.
The box score numbers in 2000-01 were crazy: 27.6 points a game, with 5.5 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 1.5 steals and 1.1 blocks. He shot 40.8 per cent from three on 5.3 attempts a game before high-volume three-point shooting was properly valued. Carter is the only player in NBA history to hit those marks in the first three years of his career (all statistics via Basketball Reference).
Only nine other players have ever averaged at least 27 points a game in one of their first three full seasons and scored at least that much in Year 3, and everyone one of them is in the Hall of Fame or headed there, except for Mark Aguirre, a three-time all-star and two-time NBA champion who has a case.
Toronto Raptors: Revisiting the ‘secret’ Scottie Pippen trade
Well, The Last Dance unveiled just how much Krause wanted to rebuild the Bulls, despite winning the 1996 and 1997 NBA Finals. The documentary detailed tensions between management and Pippen, too, and moving him would have jumpstarted a new-look Chicago team.
But Toronto also set itself up for a push forward. Middling seasons highlighted the first two years upon arrival in the NBA, but a jump from 21 to 30 wins in 1996-97 provided some hope. This was still a young group with most of the aforementioned players, sans Billups; attendance was high (eighth in the league in 1996-97), and a lottery pick was on the way.
Pairing a well-renowned veteran with this group could have taken the Raptors to the postseason. Scottie Pippen, still just a reasonable 32 years old at the 1997 NBA Draft, was coming off averages of 20.2 points, 6.5 rebounds and 5.7 assists in the Bulls’ latest title run. Those numbers were the status quo of what became his final year with that dynasty, so Toronto was in for a dynamic all-star, whose situation was ready to burst.
This Pippen-led roster had the chance to work into the playoffs. The Raptors would have received their centerpiece, with the opportunity of challenging quality but flawed teams in the New Jersey Nets and the Washington Wizards for the final postseason spot. Actually finding their way in depends on how much Pippen transforms this team and its young supporting cast.
One thing is—likely—for sure: the Raptors never land Vince Carter.
A draft-day trade in 1998 brought one North Carolina star north of the border for another, Antawn Jamison. Swapping the No. 4 and 5 picks with the Golden State Warriors, the Raptors acquired what became their standard-bearer for the next six-plus years, nearly leading them to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2001.
Carter was highly regarded out of college, and with the Scottie Pippen-led Toronto Raptors hypothetically landing near the bottom of the lottery or as the eighth seed in the playoffs, he’s outside of their range. Although Dirk Nowitzki and Paul Pierce were the No. 9 and 10 picks, respectively, landing between No. 11 and 14 resulted in Bonzi Wells, Michael Doleac, Keon Clark and Michael Dickerson. Not exactly game-changers.
So, no Carter. No McGrady. No Pippen, too?
Chicago traded its disgruntled star after the 1997-98 season to the Houston Rockets, where Pippen stayed for just one lockout-shortened campaign. He eventually asked for a trade to the Los Angeles Lakers, hoping to play for his ex-head coach, Phil Jackson, per ESPN.com at the time. Instead, a move to the Portland Trail Blazers happened.
A new study shows ‘Jurassic Park’ got something important wrong about raptors
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh have made a discovery that could crush our fantasy career goals as Jurassic Park raptor trainers. The scientists analyzed the teeth of the velociraptor’s close relative, deinonychus antirrhopus, and found evidence that the raptors seldom worked together to hunt prey down in groups. In reality, they say, it’s likely raptors were more like Komodo dragons in the sense that they might share a kill but not actually coordinate to bring a victim down.
Deinonychus is the species that the Jurassic Park series used to create its velociraptors. The idea of the raptors hunting in packs first came about by a Yale paleontologist named John Ostrom. He was the man who Michael Crichton contacted for advice on dinosaurs. Later, it was also Ostrom who introduced the theory that dinosaurs were ancestors of birds. While his bird ancestry hypothesis has become more accepted within the paleontology community thanks to continued dinosaur research, his pack-hunting raptor theory hasn’t quite endured the same scrutiny.
“Raptorial dinosaurs often are shown as hunting in packs similar to wolves,” vertebrate paleontologist Joseph Frederickson, who led the study, told Phys.org. “The evidence for this behavior, however, is not altogether convincing. Since we can’t watch these dinosaurs hunt in person, we must use indirect methods to determine their behavior in life.”
One way is to look at the dinosaurs’ descendants. “The problem with this idea is that living dinosaurs (birds) and their relatives (crocodilians) do not usually hunt in groups and rarely ever hunt prey larger than themselves,” Frederickson explained. “Further, behavior like pack hunting does not fossilize so we can’t directly test whether the animals actually worked together to hunt prey.”
Which took the scientists to the next step: Analyzing the remains of the predators’ teeth.