While it may seem that the Pistons wouldn’t benefit from being included in any NBA plan to resume the season, waiting for next season could prove detrimental to the franchise, as the team’s website writer Keith Langlois explains.
Rookie Sekou Doumbouya needs all the time he can get playing and working with the team’s coaches, while Luke Kennard — sidelined by knee injuries much of the season — could prove he’s healthy with rookie scale extension talks looming. An unprecedented, prolonged break prior to next season would disrupt the Pistons’ rebuilding plan as well as the players’ circadian rhythm, Langlois adds.
We have more from around the Central Division:
- Bulls guard Tomas Satoransky is also concerned about a huge gap between seasons for also-rans, Rob Schaefer of NBC Sports Chicago relays. In an interview posted on Euro Hoops Instagram Live, Satoransky said it would be very tough for NBA players to deal with that type of layoff. “I think it’s difficult to imagine being without a game until December, this year basically being without games. That kind of changes your perspective also on being able to come back to finish the season,” Satoransky said. “We are competitors and we want to compete against everyone.”
- There were rumblings during the season that Bulls forward Lauri Markkanen was unhappy, but he declared in a recent podcast he wants to stay with the franchise long-term. “I want to stay in Chicago and sign an extension (with the Bulls), no question. I love this city,” Markkanen said on Finnish podcast Urheilucast (hat tip to On Tap Sports Net). Markkanen is eligible for a rookie scale extension prior to next season.
- The Cavaliers are another team that could be left out of the NBA’s final plan to resume the season. Chris Fedor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer breaks down the implications for the franchise in each possible scenario.
Fedor in his choices of logic seems to favor the Cavs being left out. Significantly, he cannot find anyone associated with the Cavs who will make a Lillard-type statement (which was probably temporary big-talk in Lillard’s case anyway). He cannot even find any agreement.
Fedor does note, like the Bulls & Pistons writers, that there are particular players and/or management decisions that would greatly benefit from additional look-sees.
What none of these dolts realize is that a forced reduction in teams is not even constitutional. There will be things judicially overlooked in this pandemic, but to allow some teams to benefit while others are prohibited is a major lawsuit waiting to happen… and it might be individual owner/voters, not the law-protected NBA, that are exposed.
If given the opportunity to vote on restricted resumption, I would advise passing on voting. Employees of teams denied will sit there watching it on TV getting mad, looking to get even.
Players generally say, if it’s safe, I want to be there. If the NBA holds playoffs, then they’re saying it’s safe.
Invite all, and let individuals decide individually by showing up or not, all legal-like.
RSVP resumption!
Except the nba isn’t the government and can do whatever it wants as a private company. Selecting the highest performing teams is merit based, good luck winning a constitutional battle over that one
Courts will follow the CBA and none of this is in the CBA. Calling the NBA a private company is already on thin ice, as the NBA and other sports leagues have themselves argued both ways in legal cases over the years. It is either one entity or thirty. Courts do not want to destroy sports leagues so they are given clearance regardless.
But while the setup of this one-off bubble-camp does not determine the fate of the NBA as a whole, it is exposed when establishing a pecking order within the NBA.
Of course maybe none of the spurned teams care, or they get brownie points in the league office instead, so a lawsuit may not result. Probably they will just get mad, which could be good for 20/21.
The Cavs will want in; the Bulls probably not; the Knicks have the large media to deal with but should want in, as should the Piston’s FO^; it’s just where these teams are at right now.
@x%sure:
“a forced reduction in teams is not even constitutional.” – wtf are you talking about Willis? I hope you are not invoking this literally, only referencing the CBA – which is a civil agreement, subject at any time to revision and addenda, so ‘if the president does it, then it is not illegal’.
Whatever the NBA comes up with, they can do, and contracts do force players to play if they do not want to be in breach.
However, one would assume the union is going to protect the interests of their membership, and if individual players refuse to participate, they may not get paid, but they certainly won’t get fired without legal repercussions, and those players will remain on the roster for next season.
Changing the CBA to promote the interests of some teams over others is not what CBAs should be doing for their own sake… CBAs by nature have status over contracts in courts, partly for not stooping to that. Usually though since the sides have staffs that are constantly in a position to bargain, some kind of compensation can be worked out. At least six teams are being tossed aside while about eight more are favored with game times.
Silver is getting around constitutional issues by offering “allstar games” to individuals. Ha, they are not, but do offer some compensation to losers, thus exist.
?The NBA can allow a lucrative postseason to whoever the commish wants, by fiat? Sounds risky! Better hope bullying power is in effect. I just watched an Alec Baldwin movie; he made sure he got his way, until the end.
I will claim the CBA gets preferred over NBA brass. Heck CBAs dominate government officials, even Feds. Depending.