The Broken Timing of the NBA Playoffs
Winning in sports is all about four major elements: Talent, Chemistry, Perseverance, and Timing.
You may not need to be strong in all four aspects, but you do need at least a substantial amount of each category in order to succeed in winning a championship. That’s what makes it so hard to win it all, some of these things are way beyond your control---chemistry and (especially) timing.
With the pandemic still in full swing, we are seeing the concept of “timing” absolutely killing certain teams that should have been on the main stage, or just might end up not being on the final round despite their talent and year-long success. To take things a little further, it might actually spell out exactly why we are seeing such ugly ratings in the NBA Finals.
The Milwaukee Bucks should have been the opponent for the Los Angeles Lakers, not the Miami Heat, but the coronavirus reset the entire NBA season and eliminated all the momentum Giannis and company had built. At home they had a winning percentage of over .850, their overall record was 53-12, had a seven-game lead over the second-best team in the East, had a four-game lead over the Lakers for best record in the entire league. This was a work in clear progress towards the main goal; Giannis Antetokonumpo went from intriguing prospect to most improved player to back-to-back MVP, while the team went from Eastern Conference bottom-feeder to their fourth consecutive season improving upon their record and easily having a clear path towards the Finals. This should have been their year.
But timing. They hit their peak as a franchise just as the world caught on fire and eliminated their clear home field advantage path to the Finals. All of a sudden the reset allowed for hurt and injured players to rest up and refresh themselves to make a secondary run. Before Issac went down (again), the Magic looked amazing. The Phoenix Suns could have been a deadly 8-seed for the Lakers to face after going 7-0 in the bubble. The Blazers figured themselves out, and if they had been on full strength could have made a deeper run. The Heat figured themselves out with the added time and rode this pandemic-created momentum straight to the NBA Finals. None of the results feels realistic because of the situation involved---there was a break, there are no fans, there’s no clear advantage in having a better record if everything has become neutralized.
One can argue you have to adjust to the changes given before you, but nothing in this world can prepare you for having a gigantic first-place lead, but then seeing your season delayed by months and ultimately ending up playing in front of nobody and losing all your top-seed advantages. The Los Angeles Clippers’ clear strategy was to pace themselves to be at full strength once they reached the conference semifinals----but what happens if EVERYONE was rested up for a couple months? Now, this advantage of playing your stars fewer minutes is eliminated, and the result is blowing a giant lead against a Denver Nuggets team with zero pressure and nothing to lose.
Now what does this have to do with ratings?
The disruption of the coronavirus coupled with a lack of home field advantage diluted the product into an overlong session of playoff games that sounds and appears similar to the bubble games that closed out the regular season. There are no fans, there is no pressure on the referees, there aren’t any of the fan/player interactions and chemistry on display. So with the timing of the regular season disrupted, with the chemistry between city and their team gone, we’re left with just talent on the mostly-silent basketball court.
This exposes the biggest problem with the NBA: the extremely top-heavy structure that sees the best players teaming up together instead of trying to being a leader and proudly representing the team that drafted them or the team they’ve spent a lot of time playing for. The story of the Bucks was inspiring, as Giannis endured awful free agency decisions, coaching changes, and playing for a smaller market that cannot draw top-tier talent to become the best player in basketball. This SHOULD have rewarded him with a Finals appearance in front of the fans that have waited so long for this moment.
Instead, a Miami Heat team that took advantage of zero home field and an extended break made it to take on a loaded Lakers team (with over a dozen championships already) that was built by a LeBron James whose career is more like a mercenary as opposed to a player that represents a city (like Lillard for Portland and Wade for Miami). There is a fatigue of seeing LeBron once again with a pool of hand-selected talent go to the Finals—his path to success is very different from that of a Golden State Warriors, who completely drafted and built their way to championship-caliber success. The mismatch of talent is clear here, as the Lakers have two of the five best players in the league as well as a bench with multiple future Hall of Famers. This makes for a lopsided series already on paper, and this was before the injuries hurting Miami.
Mismatches of this caliber can be equalized with playoff atmosphere, with fans, with home field momentum, and the energy created from such elements. But we don’t have any of that with the bubble atmosphere. None of the enhancements that comes from games with stronger value exists in these scenarios, even if the teams are aware of how close they are to elimination. Therefore, the product suffers. Therefore, the interest wanes, especially with increased competition. Even with LeBron James constantly making history, the LeBron fatigue combined with stripped-down content because of the circumstances created the concoction that has led to the historically low ratings.
The timing of the coronavirus hurt the Bucks. The timing of the bubble games helped the Heat. The timing of the NBA Finals not avoiding the NFL and baseball playoffs has created controversial ratings results.
The timing of all the unfortunate circumstances and momentum-destroying events is why a potential championship-clinching game is tonight, but sports fans aren’t really invested.