The Lakers title hopes face three challenges: surviving a coronavirus forced suspension of the season, surviving an untested bubble in the epicenter of a pandemic, and then winning an NBA championship with a depleted squad.
After comfortably beating the Bucks and Clippers in a weekend sweep that catapulted them to the top of the league power rankings, the Lakers seemed poised to roll through the playoffs and win their 17th NBA championship. But that was a ‘then’ rudely replaced with a ‘now’ dominated by a growing pandemic, cratering economy, and protests of racial injustice forcing the league and players to seriously question whether to resume the season.
That confluence of events has already led Davis Bertans, Trevor Ariza, and Avery Bradley to decide not to join their teammates in Orlando. By the end of the day, others players like Dwight Howard may also decide not to play. Meanwhile, teams and players are complaining the bubble is too limited or too restrictive, worrying about getting injured or catching Covid-19, and questioning the optics of a bunch of black NBA players locked in a bubble.
Let’s look at the first challenge the Lakers must survive to win their 17th championship. Could rising numbers of new Covid-19 cases in Florida or players testing positive derail plans to resume the season and playoffs? While that’s possible, the financial repercussions for the league and the players would be disastrous. The networks would cancel all TV contracts, the NBA would void the CBA, and both sides would lose billions.
While conditions could worsen over the next two weeks, the realistic chances the NBA will cancel their current plans to resume the season are slim and none. We may see changes but there’s too much at stake to cancel. The league is counting on the bubble to protect the players from contracting the virus and testing to enable them to control its spread. Even players who have tested positive like Nikola Jokic should have time to recover and play.
As for complaints about the bubble, the league still has a couple of weeks to work with the players and Disney World workers to resolve their concerns. Expect an expanded bubble to protect more players, workers, and families. The stakes are so high the league will spend whatever it needs to satisfy all of stakeholders necessary for the resumption of the season and the playoffs to happen. The adverse impact of cancelling the season will demand it.
Once the challenges of coronavirus and the bubble have been resolve, the Lakers will get their opportunity to win their 17th championship, though without guard Avery Bradley and maybe even center Dwight Howard. While Bradley and Howard were integral contributors during the regular season, the Lakers have able guard replacements for Avery and already plan for Anthony Davis to play increased minutes at center going forward.
So while the Lakers would certainly have preferred to have Bradley on the roster, his or Dwight Howard’s absence would not be enough to prevent the Lakers from reaching their goal and winning their 17th NBA championship.
There’s too much at stake for the NBA bubble to fail. To start with, most NBA players are going to agree to play. Right now, only three have opted out. Just three. The main reason why everybody else wants to play is money. No play, no pay. Billions of dollars and the future of the league are at stake and the NBA will make whatever concessions to the players that need to be made to give them the rest of this season as a platform for Black Lives Matter.
Second, if there is any way professional sports can resume in this pandemic environment it’s with a bubble like the NBA is proposing. That’s something football and baseball can’t do. They’re talking about an entire full season. All the NBA is talking about is an 8-game regular season and four rounds of playoffs. The bubble can work and the NBA has a couple of weeks to work out how to make it work. The games will happen. Count on it.
Third, nobody is going to award a championship without playoffs and the Lakers don’t need Avery Bradley or even Dwight Howard to win it all. The key, as always, are your superstars and the Laker have everybody beat in this area. LeBron James and Anthony Davis trump every other team in the league. KCP, Green, and Caruso can play a few more minutes. Waiters and JR Smith will give them more shooting.
Even if Dwight sits out, which I don’t think he will, AD is going to play a lot more minutes at the five and so is Morris. Dwight saw his minutes drop the weekend we comfortably beat the Bucks and Clippers as Vogel turned to fives who could stretch the defense. That’s the formula for the playoffs, not more JaVale and Dwight. Lakers will fine. LeBron and AD will go into playoff mode. Lakers will not even have to play a seventh game in any series.