4 big guesses about the second half of the NBA

In early March, the NBA League issued its first memo to teams, limiting the way players interact with fans. On March 12, the Jazz player Gobert confirmed that he had contracted new pneumonia, and the NBA announced its suspension. As of now, at least 10 NBA players have become confirmed cases of new coronary pneumonia, including Wood, Mitchell, Gobert, Smart and others have recovered.

The impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic on the 2019-2020 season is obvious, and the NBA is still shutting down indefinitely. Will this season be cancelled? When can I rematch? In what form do you finish the rest of the season? All of the above are issues that NBA teams, players, fans and related practitioners care about. There are various opinions on this. Various schemes have been proposed. The NBA league has also stated before, "We are exploring all schemes that can guarantee the safety of the rematch, Everything is possible."

Whether the season is cancelled

Season cancellation is not currently an option

On April 2, the Croatian top basketball league announced the cancellation of the remaining games of the season. Following Australia, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Lithuania, South Korea and other countries canceling their professional basketball leagues, the list of professional leagues directly canceled this season due to the epidemic continues to grow. . Will the NBA be the next one? I am afraid no one can easily make such a decision.

Since the NBA announced the shutdown on March 12, the epidemic in the United States has continued to deteriorate, and it has quickly become the country with the largest number of confirmed cases of new coronary pneumonia in the world. However, no matter whether the official of the league, the team owner, the players of the teams, and the media reporters, almost no one Treat season cancellation as an alternative.

When can we rematch

June rematch to ensure a complete schedule

At the beginning of the NBA's announcement of the lockout, the NBA president once publicly announced on TV that the NBA will be interrupted for at least 30 days this season. "Even if we shut down for a month or a month and a half, we can restart the season. The finals may be delayed until July."

"The season will resume when public health officials approve." This is the official response of the NBA in late March to when the rematch will begin. At that time, the league was still optimistic that the season would resume as soon as possible. However, as the epidemic situation in the United States deteriorated sharply, the public health department was obviously overwhelmed, and the NBA league had to start considering various rematch options.

Before the NBA lockout, the 2019-2020 season has had about 65 rounds. The regular season games played by each team are between 63 and 67 games. According to the original schedule, it will take 35 days to finish. Remaining regular season. As for the playoffs, the span is about two months.

This means that for the NBA to complete the season in a complete format, it takes at least three months or so of the current period. In this case, although the Tokyo Olympic Games has been postponed, there is no conflict between the national players and the US men ’s basketball training. If the rematch can be played on behalf of their respective teams at any time, how to find the empty space of about 3 months, and try not to affect it In the 2020-2021 season, NBA leagues and executives of various teams face huge challenges.

According to US media reports, if you want to finish this season in full form without affecting the preseason and regular season schedules for next season, the loosest deadline for the NBA Finals this season is early September, "No one wants to start next season. Before this season, the championship has not yet been produced. "This means that the NBA must resume the game in June to ensure the previous complete schedule.

Where to fight how to fight

The best in the "Casino" empty game

Even if the NBA successfully rematches, for the safety of players and related staff, the empty game has long been the consensus of all parties. At the beginning of the NBA lockout, because the NBA Development League announced the cancellation of this season, the league is already collecting development venues and training facilities. The American media believes that this conveys a signal that only under the premise of NBA empty games, the development league Will be an alternative.

Of course, as the epidemic continues to deteriorate, it is clear that just empty games will not be a sufficient condition for the NBA rematch. Concentrating the teams to play in one place has gradually become a popular solution for all parties in the NBA. Simply speaking from this point of view, the American media believes that the CBA rematch plan provides a good idea for the NBA.

It is understood that the Chinese Basketball Association and CBA have previously proposed to hold tournament-based leagues in Dongguan and Qingdao. 20 CBA teams went to Dongguan and Qingdao in batches for a single round of competition. The game was conducted in an empty field, but live. Although this plan has not been approved by superiors at present, it is considered to be the least-risk rematch plan in the current situation.

"Concentrate all teams into a controlled environment to restart the game, let the players live, eat, train and play in one place, everything is under reliable protection." The US media believes that this solution is feasible and relatively Safely, if the league restarts, the NBA league may choose Las Vegas as the venue.

According to reports, when discussing potential game cities within the NBA, Las Vegas, Orlando, Atlantic City, and Louisville have all become alternatives, but the most mentioned is undoubtedly Las Vegas.

In addition to the relatively mild local epidemic situation, Las Vegas has enough hotels, fitness facilities, training and game venues to meet the needs of various teams. Las Vegas has hosted NBA All-Stars and has been in recent years. Has been hosting the NBA Summer League, the above factors have made "Casino" the best solution for the empty game after the rematch.

Whether to reduce the schedule

Playoffs transformed into high probability events

NBA officials have stated that this lockout may lead to changes in the NBA calendar since then. For example, each season's opener is extended from around November to around Christmas. This also reflects the determination of the league and the teams for the rematch from the side. Considering the current epidemic situation in the United States, if the NBA finally determines not to cancel this season, reducing the remaining schedule and the playoffs will be a high probability event.

The NBA regular season has a total of 82 rounds, and the remaining games for each NBA team range from 15 to 19 games. For the Bucks, Lakers, Raptors and other strong teams that locked early in the playoffs, they naturally only focused on how to play in the playoffs, but for some teams on the edge of the playoffs, the remaining regular season schedule Whether there will be changes is also crucial.

Taking the Western Division as an example, from the 8th to the 12th in the West, the Grizzlies, Trail Blazers, Pelicans, Kings, Spurs and other five teams have the opportunity to compete for a playoff spot. Whether this season's regular season will cancel the direct playoffs, or whether it will be 82 or 70 rounds of unified games, will affect the fate of the above teams. Therefore, how to arrange the remaining regular season schedules while ensuring fairness is one of the important considerations for the NBA league.

The US media generally believes that because most players cannot guarantee normal training during the lockout period, playing the playoffs directly after the rematch will affect the level of the game. Each team obviously needs a certain number of regular season games to match the lineup and tactics. Therefore, after playing 82 regular season games or a unified game, it is more popular among the teams.

As for how to play in the playoffs, the differences between the parties are even greater. The side that supports the playoffs' continuation of 7 wins and 4 wins is obviously more focused on the game itself. The reason why the NBA playoffs repeatedly appear in the classic series is inseparable from the gimmick of the "Snatch Seven". Seven games give the entire series unlimited possibilities, the ups and downs of the plot and the blood of the "Seven Match". Zhang is considered the essence of the playoffs.

However, considering the reality of the epidemic, the voice supporting the NBA playoff restructuring prevailed. Historical data shows that it was not until 2003 that the NBA playoffs began to implement a complete 7-game 4-win system. For a long period of time before this, the first round matchups in the east and west were implemented with a 5-game 3-win system. In the first few decades of the establishment of the NBA, only the finals were implemented with 7 wins and 4 wins.

Therefore, there should not be much resistance to returning to the 3 wins in 5 games or even the 2 wins in 3 games. In addition, some people have suggested that the NBA can learn from the NCAA "Crazy March" game system and adopt a fixed victory. The single defeat elimination system makes this special season more dramatic this year.

Written by Xu Bangyin, reporter from Beijing News