I’ll never forget that feeling when I first realized my dad wasn’t some superhero. All the time he’d spent doing his part to raise and support me made me idolize him. Then, as I got older and life got tougher, as I questioned my place in this world, I saw him for who he really was: a flawed human trying like hell to get through life without screwing up too badly along the way.
Of course, he did screw some things up. We all have. And we all have to deal with the consequences.
When I was younger, I saw the NBA as a governing body existing to regulate a game featuring the most amazing basketball players on earth. I revered the pinnacle of a sport that touches my soul. Then, as I got older and pandemic life got tougher, I saw the NBA for what it really is: A corporation trying like hell to sell us a product without screwing up too badly along the way.
Of course, the NBA did screw this up. Its handling of the pandemic is being praised as a wonderful NBA Finals prepares to deliver a Game 5 in an even series tomorrow night, but getting to the finish line doesn’t mean they’ve won the race.
No, the NBA has irreparably altered its evolution with the way it's handled its business. The pandemic was a meteor strike, and what we’ve known the league to be is now in the process of dying.
Soon, an infusion of new television cash will flood the league, and players who saw themselves commodified beyond recognition these past two seasons will lean into that, turning the league into an unrecognizable jumble of moving pieces. Uniforms might as well become wearable LED displays that can be reprogrammed to change city names on the fly, and it will be hard to blame the players for it.
They agreed to a sudden pivot to a December start, but they hardly had a choice. Yes, they wanted their regular offseason back, but they also wanted their money, and the only way to get it was to march along with the league and hope for the best.
“There was talk that the NBA season was going to start, training camp was going to start January 15,” Denver Nuggets head coach Michael Malone said on the Lowe Post podcast. “I think everybody in the NBA, especially those teams that were in the bubble, and late in the bubble, felt that was a good starting date. And then all of a sudden it changed, and news came down that we were starting December 1. And that was a really quick turnaround, mentally and physically and emotionally, and that continued all season long.”
At every turn, players and coaches were put through a non-stop ringer.
“I think more than the physical tool, it was a mental toll. And it wasn’t just 72 games, condensed schedule,” Malone said. “It was -- we had a Sunday game at 1 o’clock, I was driving down to the arena at 11 o’clock to get tested on Saturday night. It was getting tested twice a day. It was just non-stop.”
The league’s billionaire owners were not subjected to what players and coaches had to do in order to make this season happen, and don’t think that doesn’t go unnoticed. When the league needed the players to make this ridiculous season happen, they acquiesced, but when it came time for the league to make sure player health was a priority, the league just told players to fall in line.
Today, people around the league are patting themselves on the back for getting through this madness, but that says nothing for those who caught COVID-19 along the way. Players put their bodies and, potentially, their long-term well-being on the line when postponed games were jammed in the middle of already tight schedules. Players got sick and hurt, but the league pressed on, all while knowing that pressing on contributed to the problem.
“I have no doubt that the additional stress, again physical and emotional, on them contributes to injuries,” Commissioner Adam Silver said in his pre-Finals press conference.
We’re now wondering what the league looks like when things get back to normal, but there is no “normal” anymore. After the season they went through, who can blame players anymore for making the most of their own careers, playing where they want, and with whomever they want? What loyalty is owed to a league that cares so little about their well-being?
The promises of focusing on player health ring hollow now that we’ve seen the league rush this season through. The celebrations of a job well done are happening in offices on high floors with good views of Central Park, far away from the people who actually pulled it off.
Maybe it’s fitting that the season ends with one last player, Bradley Beal, in a health and safety protocol. Add him to the pile.
The league tried to sell us a diamond cut with hacksaws and polished with a belt sander. We took it because we like diamonds, and we’d rather have that than none.
The league did what it had to do in putting this season on. Too much money was on the line. That’s why the players signed on for it. But what happened after that isn’t worthy of celebration today.
“Lots of different factors went into making these decisions,” Silver said. “It’s fair game to second-guess them, and I think frankly, we may not know for quite awhile, until we’re really able to look back when we know this pandemic is over, whether we made the right decisions or not.”
I don’t think it will take that long at all.