News Around the League

The coronavirus has forced all of the major sporting leagues to suspend or delay operations as the world struggles to contain what has become a global pandemic. History will ultimately tell the tale as to whether this was a severe overreaction leading to mass pandemonium or good commonsense prevailing over the fans’ insatiable appetite for watching world-class athletes compete at the highest level.

As of this moment, Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell of the Utah Jazz, are the two high profile players who have tested positive but the Detroit Pistons are reporting that an unnamed member of their team has also been stricken. As we all know, Gobert deliberately touched all of the microphones at the end of a March 9th press conference as a lighthearted moment in the wake of all of the corona talk. However, the joke backfired when he was found to be infected two days later, serving as the impetus for the league to suspend operations that same evening.

However, Gobert has subsequently apologized for his actions and backed up the talk by donating $500,000 to employee-related relief efforts in stemming the tide of the coronavirus. The 27-year-old French native issued the following statement, “I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of concern and support over the last 24 hours. I have gone through so many emotions since learning of my diagnosis … mostly fear, anxiety, and embarrassment. The first and most important thing is I would like to publicly apologize to the people that I may have endangered. At the time, I had no idea I was even infected. I was careless and made no excuse.”

Events will be unfolding in the days and weeks to come but in order to make sure you don’t miss a beat, consider checking in with Sportsbook Review on a daily basis.

Playoff Proposal

For some strange reason, everything that is shutting down like the NBA, NHL, MLB, as well as public schools, colleges, and universities are virtually all in lockstep with this nebulous four-week timeline before they will consider reopening. Although we are not conspiracy theorists, it does seem like there has been a surreptitious meeting of the world’s most powerful people or a mystical cabal that already holds a vaccine and knows when it will be rolled out to the general public. Mid-April sounds about right.

Nevertheless, if the NBA season can be salvaged there is a player on the Brooklyn Nets who has a very intriguing proposal regarding the playoffs. Spencer Dinwiddie tweeted the following, “We could do a 5 game tuneup and just jump straight to a March Madness best of 7 winners take all every team tournament. Not bound by conference but all 1-30 just getting to it Bracket style. Every game would be nationally televised, fans would go crazy. Could even Neutral site the play in series (since 30 isn’t an even breakdown) in a football arena like the national championship to try to recoup some revenue.”

The format would look something like this:

  • All 30 NBA teams would be involved in the playoffs.
  • The top four teams, regardless of conference, would receive first-round bye. In this case, the top four seeds would be the Bucks, Lakers, Raptors, Clippers in that order.
  • The bottom four teams with the worst records would play a preliminary round consisting of two best-of-three series with the winners advancing to what would be considered the first-round. The bottom four teams would be the Hawks, Timberwolves, Cavaliers, and Warriors in that order.
  • The first round would consist of 24 teams (30 teams – 4 with byes – 2 that were eliminated in the preliminary round = 24).
  • There would be twelve winners emerging from that first round plus the four bye teams would mean a sort of Sweet 16 for the second round which would be the resumption of business as usual NBA playoff basketball.

Not a bad idea and one that the NBA brass should sincerely consider if, in fact, the league does get back up and running before it is too late. Stay tuned because there will undoubtedly be more breaking NBA news and updates in the coming days and weeks ahead.