The NBA is officially…back? Yes. Yes it is. Well, sort of. The NBA’s bubble is up and thriving — or at least working as intended. Testing for COVID-19 has been rigorous and the results from the latest round of all players returned zero positives. Teams are becoming whole again as players who had not yet traveled to Orlando due to either positive test results or “excused absences” are trickling in. And, on Wednesday, the league held its first “scrimmages” between teams — all on TV, of course — that will serve as the ramp up to the seeding games that are set to begin next week.
With that, the Lakers play today! The face off against the Mavericks in a 40 minute scrimmage that will be on NBA TV nationally and Spectrum SportsNet in the LA market.
If you’re looking for deep analysis on this game, unfortunately you’ve come to the wrong place. I’ll have more to say after I see how this game plays out, but I don’t have many important thoughts beforehand. I do expect a bit of sloppiness, but nothing too egregious.1Wednesdays games showed a bit of rust, but guys looked like they were in good shape and played well for the most part. I expect LeBron and AD to play some, but not a lot. I expect every player available to play to get some run, and hope to see some extended stretches for the young guys there — particularly rookie Talen Horton-Tucker.
Beyond that, though, the only thing I hope for is good health and injury avoidance. These games don’t mean much of anything and while I’m going to love watching these guys get back on the court, drawing too many (if any) conclusions from how these 40 minutes go is not what I’ll be doing.
Enjoy the game, folks. More to come.