Friday, March 13th, 2020

Bad time to be an NBA newsletter, amiright?

March 13, 2020

Friday, March 13th, 2020

1. The Lead: It feels like this all happened very quickly 

For an idea of how shockingly quick this -- the cancellation of every sport and every league across the country -- happened, in our last newsletter, sent two days ago, we wrote about something as impossibly stupid and silly as eating dozens of chicken nuggets.(We stand by it.)In fact, our only mention of coronavirus came as a last second throw in to our Quick Hits section, that the Warriors planned on playing the Nets on Thursday in front of an empty arena.A few things have happened since…

  • The first non-money/labor related stoppage of an NBA season, ever? 

  • The crystallization of Rudy Gobert in America’s zeitgeist as the man who acted like a complete fool, got the coronavirus and (probably) gave it to his teammate Donovan Mitchell, thus detonating the suspension of the NBA season, a precedent that snowballed into everything -- from the NCAA Tournament to the poor XFL -- shutting down.

On one hand, it’s cool that he said sorry for acting like a child (here’s a video of him touching everyone’s microphones and recorders on Monday).On the other hand, he's still a doofus.Also, it seems like his teammates are really angry at him.Here’s what Woj said on ESPN yesterday: 

“The Jazz are fortunate they don’t have to get back together and start playing games again. There is a lot to do to repair relationships, not just between Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert, but others in the locker room. There’s a lot of frustration with Gobert."

There’s also a new idea going around

… OK.

Two final things:

  1. Adam Silver went on a special edition of Inside the NBA last night (Chuck telecommuted; he is self-quarantining after being willfully stupid about the virus on Colbert on Tuesday) and said “of course it’s possible” that the entire season could be canceled. He also told Woj the suspension would last at least 30 days.    

  2. There is no telling what implication this suspension could have on the NBA salary cap going forward. The Daryl Morey-China thing already lowered projections, but potentially losing out on all this ticket, ad, playoff revenue, etc., will mean way less money next year for everyone involved.

2. The last bucket of the men’s NCAA basketball season 

While every other conference in college basketball was announcing the cancellation of its tournaments, the Big East Tournament briefly continued yesterday, with St. John's and Creighton tipping at noon and playing at Madison Square Garden up through halftime.The game -- and the tournament -- was called at half, with St. John's beating Creighton at the time, 38-35.LJ Figueroa's dime to David Caraher was the game's, the tournament's, and the season's final bucket.For 82 years, starting with Oregon in 1938, there has been a men’s NCAA basketball champion. That’ll end this year.Side note: The end of the NCAA basketball season is particularly terrible for one-off teams like Seton Hall, San Diego State, Dayton and Rutgers, which were all having their best seasons in a long time.

3. In the meantime, YouTube and books  

We aren’t sure what we’ll do -- we’ll definitely send out updates as they happen, and maybe get creative with some random NBA history deep dives.As for the immediate future though, as we all prepare for the first extended period of time without sports in our lifetimes, YouTube and sports books will be our friends.PS: This news has created some great sports front pages:

 4.  Off the press