Randoms: The Great Pause

Sorry for the social media distancing, Cavs fans. It’s been hard to keep it all balanced. Despite being home all the time, there is more to do. Without 3-4 Cavs games a week It’s easy to fall down other rabbit holes. Yet despite that, it feels like we’re living in a world on hold while we let the health care workers do their jobs and try to keep from getting sick ourselves. Life without sports has been weird to say the least. It’s like the old Bruce Springsteen song: 57 Channels (And Nothing On). ‘Cept now it feels like 5700 channels and nothing on. “Here I’m Alive / Everything All of the Time” Thom Yorke wrote. Yeah. It feels like that, too.

John Oliver noted a few weeks ago that the most popular thing on Netflix is scrolling through the menu for a half hour before going to bed. The amount of entertainment options is staggering if you are connected to a decent internet pipe. It can seem overwhelming and pointless at the same time. I’ve read more than a couple Groundhog Day references recently. When Andy McDowell’s character asks Phil Conners, “Is this what you do with eternity?” as he’s flipping cards into a hat, it’s a reflection on all of us. My kids are getting really good at Animal Crossing this week.

But we’re not caught in a loop. We’re caught on pause a little bit, or maybe an uncomfortably long extended slo-mo cut. And only some of us are actually slowed down. Some of us are fighting desperately for life, and some of us are fighting desperately to help others. Some of us have critical jobs in the grocery or manufacturing industries and have to fight their own own anxiety and go out into the wild and risk their health for the rest of us every day. I’d like to extend a heartfelt “thank you” to all those folks, whether they’re running an ER in Brooklyn, or Whole Foods in Cleveland Heights. And for the rest and majority of us, we’re just stuck in the great wait. The best thing we can do is not go anywhere unless we absolutely need to, hole up in our houses, do remote work if we can, and pray for the president to resign and everyone to put DeWine in charge.

My kids are on spring break all week, and I took a couple of days to hang out with them while my wife is also off. It’s going to be a bit scary next week as she will probably have to start working at a doctor’s office again. We’re talking about maybe living apart while she does that, just to keep the kids safe…

Thank God for Mike DeWine. He’s shown phenomenal leadership, and Ohio’s infection growth rate has been a fraction of Michigan’s despite similar populations, and it’s been DeWine’s early, consistent leadership that has made the difference: postponing the primary, shelter-in-place declarations, cancelling elective surgeries. It could be luck, but to be frank, I think a Republican who’s following scientific recommendations is carrying more weight across the political spectrum than a Democrat in Michigan, who the fringe right in that state just won’t listen to. It could be a random infection cluster that exploded exponentially too. Detroit is about to be in the thick of it. Pray for them.

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So much of the national discussion seems blinded by a lack of empathy. I found this tweet to be very telling.

People in NYC see local conditions, and are rightfully concerned about virus spread, but maybe a tad susceptible to Cannibalism-at-the-Super-Dome panic.

People in Boondocks Kansas see local conditions and wonder what the big deal is, and attribute it to Media Conspiracy

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) March 27, 2020

Look out for each other, folks. We’re all we’ve got.

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The NBA seems so distant and irrelevant right now. It’s a strange counterpoint because it took an NBA player getting the virus to first wake people up in this country. There has been a lot of looking back while we wait to see what the future holds. In the last week I watched Game 7 on NBATV, and a good portion of the championship parade. What a fun time. Random observations from game 7: Kevin Love was amazing in that game. He only had nine points, but he was fighting for every rebound, especially in the first half, and his defensive awareness and rotations were off the charts, as they were for much of that playoff run. The dude finished +19 in the greatest game in Cavalier history.

I had also forgotten how insane Draymond Green was that night. The dude was 5-5 from three in the first half and finished 32/15/9. He single handedly kept the Warriors in the game. We also got the worst coaching ever from Steve Kerr, who played Varejao and Ezeli a brain numbing 19 minutes that game as they combined to go 0-5 and -9 each. I shudder to think what would happen if the Dubs had gone small with Barbosa, Livingston, or even Speights in the lineup. Maybe LeBron goes matchup hunting against those guys too. Maybe the bully ball possession game the Cavs turned it into was impossible for those smaller guys to overcome, but I am glad we never found out. I really wanna go back and watch games 1-7 of that series.

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There’s a lot of talk about what the NBA will look like when we’re finally back to playing games. My guess is that they round out the regular season so everyone gets to the same number of games and maybe a week and a half under their belt, and then shorten the first round to 5 games. You may even see a play-in game for the lower seeds. The only caveat to that is the question, “do we really need teams like the Cavs to come back and play (probably in front of no fans) and risk getting hurt for what are essentially meaningless games?” The counter-argument to that is “we never got to say goodbye.” If we’ve seen Tristan Thompson’s or Matthew Dellavedova’s last game in a Cavs uni, that will suck.

As for the contenders, the Bucks, Lakers, Rockets, Clippers, and Celtics of the world, we should absolutely have a playoffs and crown a champion. There’s too many great storylines not to. And hell yeah, a couple play-in games for the 7th and 8th seeds would be very fun. Plus, for teams like Milwaukee, another year without getting Giannis a championship is a big deal. Also, when this stuff started heating up, the big stars’ agents should’ve been calling their teams for extensions. You think Anthony Davis or Giannis wishes they had a guaranteed $200 million extension right now, when no one knows what the financial landscape will look like next year? You can bet they do.

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So what would those playoffs look like? My bet is we’re gonna see games in front of no fans. If that’s the case, I wonder why they’d travel? Let’s hole everyone up in empty hotels in Vegas. We’re minimizing travel, we’re playing in front of empty arenas, and basically make the NBA playoffs a closed off community. Maybe guys have their families there, maybe they don’t, but once the “guest list” is set, no one gets added or subtracted to the closed off community of teams, chefs, refs, trainers, coaches, and miscellaneous other personnel. And everyone gets tested before they’re allowed to come into the community. I’m sure Vegas would love the business. It could be done safely – possibly even more safely if we have people who’ve well recovered from infection working craft services, etc.

Lets mic these guys up, put the games on a delay and get reaction shots from random fan cams around the country. Let’s get weird and have multiple commentary streams running live (no one likes Chris Webber). Let’s have crazy halftime entertainment (streamed in from somewhere else). Let’s put on a show. I know I’d watch.

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It’s gonna be strange when everyone does get back. More than one person on #CavsTwitter has talked about the “Covid 15.” You know: the 15 pounds you put on in the first two weeks you start self isolating and not getting any exercise. A lot of these NBA guys have home gyms and courts, but not everyone in the Association is rich. Some of these guys live in hotel rooms most of the time. I’m sure everyone is trying to find a place to play, but not everyone is going to be able to. Some of these guys are just gonna be rusty and more “plump.” I don’t know if it’s the beard, but the videos I’ve seen of Bron look like he’s leaning into Dadbod. I don’t even want to know what Jared Dudley and CJ Miles look like right now. Some of these cats gonna come back resembling big baby Davis.

Like the businesses caving out there, some of these careers are likely over. J.R. Smith, Andrew Bogut, Tyler Johnson… I’m not sure they play in the NBA again. Not to mention Vince Carter whose last game was surreally abrupt.

“It’s a weird way to say I’m calling it a career.”

Vince Carter reflects on what might have been his final NBA game. pic.twitter.com/VcWlKdQAgV

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 12, 2020

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The hardest thing is going to be the timing. Basketball is a game or rhythm and teamwork. I feel for the Bucks who were playing out of their minds and shooting towards a top 3 all time regular season. It’s not going to be easy to get back to that level of competitiveness. We’re gonna see worse shooting, more turnovers, and sloppy defensive rotations. On the flip side, all these guys with nagging injuries could be back at full health, and players whose seasons have ended and who aren’t under contract in Europe, could join NBA rosters. That could very much shift the balances in some playoff series. It’s safe to say no one knows what it’s gonna look like. More importantly, we don’t know when it’s going to be.

I expect April and May to be a brutally tough time for parts of our country and for health care workers everywhere. As much as I want to see playoff basketball, we’ll just have to be patient.

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As for everything else, we’ll try to get more content up as we adjust to our new normal. Check back for a podcast, and if anyone wants to contribute something as simple as a daily links piece to NBA/Cavs news, it would be very welcome. Check in if you can. I’m worried about all of you. And stay safe out there.