The current NBA season is headed towards cancellation as the respondents are wary about the threats posed by the coronavirus. As the infection seems transmissible, even with the players, coaches, and operational staff working indoors, there aren’t many positives hinting towards a July rerun. Even if the season resumes, most players, referees, and coaches wouldn’t be willing to show up.
Apart from the expected threats of getting infected, the participants are even worried about the quarantine period and the social unrest that is currently dominating all the political and sporting proceedings.
How the Cancellation would Impact the Players?
If the season gets cancelled,Lines.com claims NBA players will have to bear the financial brunt. The salary structure will cease to exist for now and even teams will plan on reconfiguring the same to suit earnings and expenses. Not playing would be like an economic catastrophe for most players, excluding only a few big names like Irving. With the league losing out on money due to zero broadcasts and adverts, the players aren’t likely to get the Escrow funding that is usually balanced during the end of every financial year.
NBA remuneration is mostly a top-heavy hierarchy with almost 72 percent of regular players getting less than 10 million annually. Therefore, season cancellation is expected to bring down a barrage of financial troubles for most.
Impact on Record Books
Without a doubt, most NBA fans will only be interested in looking at the record book changes, brought upon by the pandemic-induced season cancellation. It is still uncertain whether the record chases will be cut-off completely instead of delayed. To start with, the ‘Missed Threes’ record of James Harden seems to the first on the line. Although this is a dubious record to have for an NBA superstar, his triple missing count for 2019-2020 stays at 498. If there would have been a full season, he could have surpassed his own record of 650 misses, in the year 2018-2019.
Milwaukee Bucks are currently placed at 53 wins and with an open season to look for, they could have at least targeted 67 wins out of 82. However, with 17 games remaining for them, the outside chance of achieving 70 wins wasn’t out of contention. That said, season cancellation would mean that they would be stranded on 53 after an impressive start with 52-8.
How would Team be impacted?
As mentioned, the chances of winning would receive a major hit for the top-performing teams. However, for the duds like Brooklyn Nets, season cancellation would mean that even other teams would be impacted and there wouldn’t be anything to rejoice, even for the decently performing teams. For Brooklyn Nets, a cancellation brings up a clean slate. Even Golden Warriors will be able to start fresh as this season was far from ideal, even for them.
Dangers posed by the pandemic are quite obvious and season cancellation seems like the most prudent approach for now. Instead of being a compulsion, canceling the 2019-2020 NBA Season is more of a civic responsibility that is to be taken and fulfilled by the governing authorities.
