The NBA is evaluating what aspects of the summer restart are working and whether they could be incorporated into future seasons, writes Jabari Young of CNBC. In addition to potentially bringing back the play-in game(s), the league is mulling the possibility of implementing regular season “series,” according to Young.
As Young explains, the thinking is that one reason the competition has been so strong this summer – despite a four-month layoff between games – is because teams don’t have to travel at all. To reduce travel in future non-bubble regular seasons, the NBA is exploring the idea of whether it might make sense to have two teams play consecutive games in the same arena.
If implemented, the idea wouldn’t result in three- or four-game series like we see in Major League Baseball. However, it could mean two teams playing back-to-back games against one another, or a club playing all its games against teams from a single state in one trip, rather than returning multiple times throughout the year, says Young.
Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- While there has been plenty of discussion over the last few months about how the coronavirus pandemic is upending the 2020 draft process for NBA teams, Fred Katz of The Athletic points out that it’s worth considering how the 2021 draft cycle may be impacted too, since it remains unclear what the upcoming college basketball season will look like.
- The East Asia Super League (EASL) has received an official stamp of approval from FIBA, according to a report from Adam Zagoria of Forbes and a press release from FIBA. The eight-team league, which will launch in 2021 and expand to 16 teams by 2023, will feature top clubs from leagues in China, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines, emulating similar Champions League formats in Europe.
- The Chinese Basketball Association has implemented new rules for foreign players for the 2020/21 season, as Emiliano Carchia of Sportando relays. Teams can have as many as four “imports” on their rosters, but only two can be active for each games and only one can be on the court at a time.
The NHL already has eastern teams visit California and Western Canada on the same trip. So there’s certainly precedent for that.
Nice idea that reduces the randomness of a NBA schedule and gives reporters a more chances to size up a subunit of a season. “The Texas swing” may be a dance but it’s also a road trip.
The first game will feature the Bucks and the second we’ll have the leftovers.
We’ll clean the Pistons today and reinstall later.
Let’s beat the heat today and sweat out tomorrow.