Teams are joining the bubbles, in Orlando (NBA) and Toronto & Edmonton (NHL). That's not to say things are going well - players are testing positive, there are meme-worthy insults to the luxuries not afforded to players in these bubbles. There's so much risk inherent in what these leagues are trying to do. I applaud them for trying, and think its silly to say 'they shouldn't come back' full stop, but still there is a lot of unease.
For a bit then, it is fun to put the unease aside, and think about what this might end up being. I took some time to think about the upside of this situation. Before we dive in, I want to say this whole piece assumes there isn't huge outbreaks, especially anything bad enough to kick out a team or end the whole experiment. Here are my musings of what the next three months (NBA & NHL) may look like.
= I'm interested to see how each league tries to add crowd noise or atmosphere to their games. Soccer has done a decent job with fake crowd noise, even rising and lowering at the right times. While it was nice to wonder for a day what it would be like to hear each basketball shoe squeak, or each tap of a stick on the ice, but also then we would hear all the cuss words you need in a lifetime - and there was no way the leagues would allow/want that. I'll credit the NHL here for taking an interesting approach and have teams organize team-specific chants/cheers recordings to use during games. It will be interesting, for sure to see if that is at all effective
= Obviously we all hope this pandemic is a once-in-a-lifetime issue, and even if it takes until the 2021-22 seasons to get back to something that shows normal, I doubt we are hurdling towards a full bubble season for 2020-21. If that is the case, we are living a once-in-a-lifetime scenario, of sports being played in bubbles, with no fans, with teams staying in the same quarters, almost like a mix of incredible sports feats with Real World. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to do something weird.
= In a related point, I hope both the NBA and NHL are taking this opportunity to film a lot of the life in the bubble - which I realize some players are already doing themselves. To me, get some video folks to agree to live in teh bubble (to avoid any covid risk) and film away. We will always remember the 2020 NBA & NHL Playoffs that were played in bubbles
= Speaking of which, we're either going to get amazing displays of closeness and positive tomfoolery in these bubbles, or rapturous infighting and drama. I can't wait for either. It's going to be amazing, the nightly night-caps at the bar, the golf, the swimming, all of it. You are putting giant egos (for a good reason) in a confined area. This is going to be three weeks of fireworks.
= On to the play, I get the fact it will initially be sloppy, but we also have a chance to see playoffs where teams are healthier than ever. There are a few cases of players playing that likely wuldn't have played at all had the seasons just continued as per normal. There's cases of guys getting a chance to fully heal and rest. Take Giannis for example, who got injured right before the pause, and now comes back fully locked and loaded and ready to go. On the hockey side, by the end it truly is bascially which team is healthier wins, but now every team is more or less as healthy. For so often we see bad hockey or basketball at times out of sheer exhaustion - for once we should see far, far less of that.
= I'm interested to see how teams that have serious home/road splits react to this situation. Are we seeing it almost like every game is a road game - so teams that hve done bad at home should do worse, or is everything basically 50/50 now. For a team like the 76ers, not getting a home game when they were like 30-2 at home this year is bad, but not having to go on the road where they were laughable at times might make up for it.
= Related to that point, a weird bit of math here. A lot of people are mentioning how home court advantage is irrelevant. That part is true. What often gets left out is home court advantage is lost for both teams. There is no real reason why we should see significantly more upsets. Yes, if you are a lower-seeded team, you don't have to play four road games where you have a lesser chance to lose. You also don't have three home games that you have a heightened chance to win. Especially for some of the underdogs that have particularly strong home court crowds/results (e.g. Utah), losing three home games is a big loss.
