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The Road to 2020 NBA Championship Goes Through Lakers’ LeBron James!

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There are many reasons why the Los Angeles Lakers are favored by the Las Vegas oddsmakers to win the 2019-20 NBA championship but they all start with superstar LeBron James, who’s still the greatest player on the planet.

LeBron may not be the greatest athlete in the game or able to leap over tall buildings like when he was young but his unrivaled physical conditioning, championship experience, and elite basketball smarts remain unmatched. Nobody playing today — not Kawhi Leonard, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant, or Steph Curry — has the winning gravity and unparalleled two-way ability to dominate playoff games and series like LeBron James.

Once the NBA resumes in a month, LeBron will remind the doubters and naysayers, who’ve conveniently forgotten who he is and what he’s done, that he’s still the King and the road to the championship goes through him. He gave Giannis and Kawhi a preview of what to expect in the playoffs as he dominated play at both ends in the Lakers’ weekend sweep of the Clippers and the Bucks before coronavirus forced the league down to shut down.

Consider the unprecedented challenge NBA teams and players are going to confront in these playoffs, with games played in a bubble in the middle of a pandemic with no fans or home court advantage after a three-month delay. These are conditions where championship confidence, experience, and savvy prevail, when those who’ve been there before, know how to focus on the moment, handle the pressure, and live up to to the expectations win.

Before play was suspended, LeBron and the Lakers were playing their best basketball of the season, had catapulted over the Bucks and Clippers to top the NBA power rankings, and had generated championship momentum. There’s reason to believe, given time to become fully rested and healthy plus a daunting set of draconian conditions they’re best suited to handle, LeBron and the Lakers should be even bigger favorites to win the title.

This year’s playoffs are not a crazy, anything-can-happen, March Madness tournament where wild card outcomes and surprise upsets are going to dominate the day and untested underdogs have unexpected advantages. These playoffs are going to be a gruelling, taxing second season played under extraordinary conditions that favor poised, focused, motivated, experienced veteran teams and players with the will and skill to prevail.

The road to the 2020 NBA Championship is going to be an arduous trek filled with obstacles and hurdles never before encountered, ending with the ultimate challenge of going through LeBron James and the Lakers.

The Future of the NBA Is On the Line. Just What is Adam Silver Going to Do?

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Barring a devastating reignition of the coronavirus pandemic, the good news is the NBA is going to resume the season. The bad news, however, is nobody knows what the resumption of the season is going to look like.

Fortunately, it looks like we’re not going to have to wait much longer to find out exactly how, where, and when the league will resume the season as the Board of Governors will approve plans to proceed this coming Thursday. The league surveyed teams’ general managers whether to finish the regular season with more games, conduct a play-in tournament, or go straight into the playoffs and whether to seed the playoffs or stick with conferences.

While nobody knows for sure what Adam Silver will recommend, Twitter is flooded with rumors as to what his plan will include. Using that info and common sense, here’s my take on what Silver’s plan might look like:

What do we know?

  1. The teams are ready to approve the plan commissioner Adam Silver recommends. The owners understand this a challenging time for the league and completely trust Silver to make right decisions.
  2. The season is scheduled to resume on Friday, July 31st, which gives the league time both to prepare to play as well as time to finish the playoffs and offseason in time to start next season on Christmas Day.
  3. Disney World in Orlando appears to be the likely venue for all games to be played to create a controlled bubble where players, coaches, key personnel, and their families can be safely isolated and protected.

What can we surmise?

  1. There’s a good chance there will be some form of play-in tournament, most likely involving the two teams holding the eighth playoff slot in each conference and the six teams who are within six games of them.
  2. There’s a good chance playoff teams will be seeded 1–16 based on record regardless of conference since five of the six team within six games of a playoff spot are in the West and only one in the East.

What remains unknown?

  1. Whether there will be additional regular season games to meet the 70-game minimum on team local television contracts since most teams had only played 63 to 66 games before the season was suspended.
  2. Whether playoff rules will be changed so teams can carry two-way players in addition to the 15 players on the roster and whether teams can designate more than the 13 players to be active for games.

Who wins and who loses?

  1. The winners would be the six teams — Blazers, Pelicans, Kings, Spurs, Suns, and Wizards — who get a shot at making the playoffs and the Lakers, who will be in a separate bracket from the Bucks and Clippers.
  2. The Losers would be the Grizzlies and Magic, who instead of making the playoffs would now have to participate in an 8-team play-in tournament and the Bucks and Clippers who will be in the same bracket.