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» » Basketball’s Getting Close. But the Hoops Talk Will Have to Wait. - The New York Times

Basketball’s Getting Close. But the Hoops Talk Will Have to Wait. - The New York Times

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Players from the 22 teams resuming the 2019-20 N.B.A. season at Walt Disney World Resort next month were required to be back in their team’s cities as of Monday. The league’s weeklong “transaction window” for roster tweaks in advance of the restart opened Tuesday at noon.

Basketball things are happening.

Writing about traditional hoop matters, though, just doesn’t feel right. Not yet.

There is a natural urge to start hypothesizing about which teams were helped and hurt the most by such a long layoff, musing about what a championship won under such untraditional circumstances would mean for the legacies of LeBron James or Giannis Antetokounmpo, and engaging in the inevitable debate inspired by recent photos that suggest Nikola Jokic, Marc Gasol and James Harden are drastically slimmer than the last time we saw them play.

Did they actually lose too much weight? That question is already being posed frequently.

I will dive into all that eventually, too. Just be patient with me. With so many big-picture complexities still looming over the league as it reboots operations, as covered in this Monday column, immersing ourselves in that sort of analysis simply feels premature.

There will be time for all that as we get closer to the scheduled start of games on July 30. The focus here, for now, belongs on the worrisome rise of coronavirus cases and positive virus tests in the Florida county that will be the site for the N.B.A.’s bubble, team-administered coronavirus testing that began Tuesday, and on the players who remain understandably determined to prioritize the Black Lives Matter movement above all.

Prognostications can wait — especially after players as prominent as Jokic and Indiana’s Malcolm Brogdon tested positive for the coronavirus this week.

Last week’s piece on Germany’s relaunched basketball Bundesliga, along the same lines, focused far more on daily life inside the B.B.L. bubble than it did on-court matters. That was by design.

In studying the German operation for a glimpse of what the N.B.A. bubble might look like, it made the most sense to laser in on the measures B.B.L. officials were taking to keep players feeling safe and eager to keep going to work before they ever got to the gym.

Yet it should be noted that the four Americans in Germany whom we interviewed all had good things to say about the quality of play as well. The 10-team tournament, playing out over a 23-day span ending June 28, has reached the semifinal stage — with no complaints from our panel about players shying away from physicality or being spooked by masked personnel courtside. If there is apprehension stemming from the unsanitary aspects of a game involving 10 players sharing one ball in a rugged contact sport played indoors, no one voiced it.

“The basketball has actually been surprisingly good,” said Alba Berlin’s Luke Sikma, the son of the 2019 Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Jack Sikma. “I think everybody was a little worried that it might be a little ugly.”

“Some guys were not in their best condition the first couple of games,” said Ludwigsburg Giants Coach John Patrick, whose team upset mighty Bayern Munich in the quarterfinals. “But after the four preliminary games every team played, it’s been a normal playoff dogfight.”

As for playing without fans, Patrick said: “It’s interesting how team chemistry, bench energy and overall enthusiasm are magnified. You can hear everything.”

Sikma described the atmosphere as “still a little bit of that summer-league, closed-door scrimmage kind of feel, where you can hear a lot more on the bench and you’re talking to your teammates a lot more.”

“It’s obviously still a bit weird, but I’ve gotten used to it,” said Ludwigsburg’s Thomas Wimbush, who totaled 22 points and 12 rebounds Tuesday against Ratiopharm Ulm to help the Giants clinch a finals berth.

Sustaining intensity in empty arenas and over such a longer period of time is sure to be a constant story line in the N.B.A.’s restart. With each team playing eight games before the playoffs begin, some of those games are bound to have little meaning. But I totally get what these guys are saying.

Playing figured to be the easiest part — the most normal aspect of the whole experience — once players settled in the bubble and it became clear that the league could succeed in keeping the coronavirus out. In the B.B.L., that has proved to be the case.

“Most definitely,” said Brose Bamberg’s Jordan Crawford, the former N.B.A. first-round pick.

Troy Weaver was the runaway leading candidate for Detroit’s general manager vacancy.

To wit: Weaver was the only candidate to interview with the Pistons’ owner, Tom Gores, according to a person familiar with the search who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.

Beyond maximizing the Pistons’ forthcoming high draft pick and some newfound financial flexibility after the February moves to jettison Andre Drummond and Reggie Jackson, Weaver’s immediate challenges include learning his new terrain and meshing with the various voices in Detroit after spending the last 12 seasons in Oklahoma City. Gores leans heavily on Arn Tellem, the longtime power agent who serves as Detroit’s chairman, and Ed Stefanski, who will remain with the Pistons in his position as a senior adviser to Gores.

“He’s the G.M., no doubt about it,” Gores said Monday of Weaver. “He’s in charge of a lot of decisions.”

Weaver’s hiring by the Pistons makes him just the seventh person of color currently leading an N.B.A. front office.

Only two of those seven — Toronto’s Masai Ujiri and Minnesota’s Gersson Rosas — hold the title of team president. The others are Cleveland’s Koby Altman, Philadelphia’s Elton Brand, Phoenix’s James Jones and San Antonio’s Brian Wright.

Only 17 of the league’s 60 lead personnel and head coaching jobs are held by people of color. The N.B.A.’s support for social justice causes and awareness as a racially conscious league are often praised, but these are disappointing statistics considering the player pool is an estimated 80 percent black — as Avery Bradley of the Los Angeles Lakers has so forcefully pointed out in challenging league officials and team owners to be more detailed in their plans to do more on that front.

Pictures of N.B.A. players taking part in unauthorized workouts and pickup games have started to circulate with increasing frequency — but don’t expect the league office to take any action against photographed participants.

Although league officials have maintained from the start of the N.B.A. shutdown on March 11 that players are supposed to avoid group workouts of any kind, permitting voluntary workouts only in team facilities now that all 30 are open, I’m told that the directives were always intended to be protective rather than punitive.

The wisdom of players participating in such activities, mind you, is another matter. Taking on an added health risk to play in settings without strict protocols just to chase a possible competitive advantage for the N.B.A. restart? That’s a very dangerous trade.

Permit us to take a quick detour to soccer so we can ask (again) nicely: Please, NBC Sports Network. Please bring back an hour a day of Sky Sports News from England.

It was such a delight to have daily access to it for most of the season. It doesn’t matter what time of day you wedge it into the schedule — we’ll tape it if the hour is ungodly. The Premier League is back now, and we need that fix.

Irrational eBay Purchase of the Month — because your humble newsletter curator refuses to grow up: I bought the new “NBA Jam” home cabinet that, if you have the patience and dexterity to assemble all the pieces, takes you right back to your favorite arcade from 1993.

Trust me: Seeing “FULL GAME PURCHASED” over and over, without stressing about where to find that next quarter, is a magical, invigorating feeling.

(In May, by the way, my favorite dose of retail therapy was a vintage Buffalo Sabres Starter jacket that arrived in such pristine original packing that I cannot bear to remove it from the plastic.)

It’s been years since I did one of these notebook-style columns with a cross section of items. I missed the format and want to do it more often.

Feel free to let me know, at the same email address you use for Corner Three, if it works or if it doesn’t.

This newsletter is OUR newsletter. So please weigh in with what you’d like to see here. To get your hoops-loving friends and family involved, please forward this email to them so they can jump in the conversation. If you’re not a subscriber, you can sign up here.

Credit...Larry W. Smith/European Pressphoto Agency

You ask; I answer. Every week in this space, I’ll field three questions posed via email at marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. (Please include your first and last name, as well as the city you’re writing in from, and make sure “Corner Three” is in the subject line.)

Q: Did Stephen Curry deserve to win finals M.V.P. over Andre Iguodala in 2015? — Micah Adams (Fort Mill, S.C.)

Stein: My good friend Mr. Adams actually posed this one as the headline to an article he wrote last week with Scott Rafferty on the fifth anniversary of the Golden State Warriors’ first Stephen Curry-led championship.

It’s a question I’ve heard often over the past five years, especially because I was one of the seven voters, representing ESPN.com at the time, who selected Iguodala over Curry. LeBron James, from the losing Cleveland Cavaliers, got the other four votes.

The Coronavirus Outbreak

  • Frequently Asked Questions and Advice

    Updated June 24, 2020

    • Is it harder to exercise while wearing a mask?

      A commentary published this month on the website of the British Journal of Sports Medicine points out that covering your face during exercise “comes with issues of potential breathing restriction and discomfort” and requires “balancing benefits versus possible adverse events.” Masks do alter exercise, says Cedric X. Bryant, the president and chief science officer of the American Council on Exercise, a nonprofit organization that funds exercise research and certifies fitness professionals. “In my personal experience,” he says, “heart rates are higher at the same relative intensity when you wear a mask.” Some people also could experience lightheadedness during familiar workouts while masked, says Len Kravitz, a professor of exercise science at the University of New Mexico.

    • I’ve heard about a treatment called dexamethasone. Does it work?

      The steroid, dexamethasone, is the first treatment shown to reduce mortality in severely ill patients, according to scientists in Britain. The drug appears to reduce inflammation caused by the immune system, protecting the tissues. In the study, dexamethasone reduced deaths of patients on ventilators by one-third, and deaths of patients on oxygen by one-fifth.

    • What is pandemic paid leave?

      The coronavirus emergency relief package gives many American workers paid leave if they need to take time off because of the virus. It gives qualified workers two weeks of paid sick leave if they are ill, quarantined or seeking diagnosis or preventive care for coronavirus, or if they are caring for sick family members. It gives 12 weeks of paid leave to people caring for children whose schools are closed or whose child care provider is unavailable because of the coronavirus. It is the first time the United States has had widespread federally mandated paid leave, and includes people who don’t typically get such benefits, like part-time and gig economy workers. But the measure excludes at least half of private-sector workers, including those at the country’s largest employers, and gives small employers significant leeway to deny leave.

    • Does asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 happen?

      So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “very rare,” but she later walked back that statement.

    • What’s the risk of catching coronavirus from a surface?

      Touching contaminated objects and then infecting ourselves with the germs is not typically how the virus spreads. But it can happen. A number of studies of flu, rhinovirus, coronavirus and other microbes have shown that respiratory illnesses, including the new coronavirus, can spread by touching contaminated surfaces, particularly in places like day care centers, offices and hospitals. But a long chain of events has to happen for the disease to spread that way. The best way to protect yourself from coronavirus — whether it’s surface transmission or close human contact — is still social distancing, washing your hands, not touching your face and wearing masks.

    • How does blood type influence coronavirus?

      A study by European scientists is the first to document a strong statistical link between genetic variations and Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Having Type A blood was linked to a 50 percent increase in the likelihood that a patient would need to get oxygen or to go on a ventilator, according to the new study.

    • How many people have lost their jobs due to coronavirus in the U.S.?

      The unemployment rate fell to 13.3 percent in May, the Labor Department said on June 5, an unexpected improvement in the nation’s job market as hiring rebounded faster than economists expected. Economists had forecast the unemployment rate to increase to as much as 20 percent, after it hit 14.7 percent in April, which was the highest since the government began keeping official statistics after World War II. But the unemployment rate dipped instead, with employers adding 2.5 million jobs, after more than 20 million jobs were lost in April.

    • What are the symptoms of coronavirus?

      Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.

    • How can I protect myself while flying?

      If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. (Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)

    • What should I do if I feel sick?

      If you’ve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.

The furor over the Iguodala choice — Adams called it “an utter abomination”— stems largely from Curry never having won the finals Most Valuable Player Award in any of Golden State’s three title runs. That void on his résumé feels wholly unfair to Curry, whose revolutionary long-range shooting, supreme confidence and uniting persona fueled the Warriors’ dynasty as much as any individual could.

Knowing that Kevin Durant won the award in 2017 and 2018, I can understand the dismay many feel about Curry missing out in 2015. I feel it, too, because it’s a void that’s going to be held against him until he fills it, even after Curry racked up three championship rings and two regular-season M.V.P. trophies.

But I stand by my vote unequivocally. Iguodala was a hugely deserving pick who played (by far) Golden State’s most effective defense against James at the height of his powers, while also averaging a critical 16.3 points, 5.8 rebounds and four assists. Iguodala was a series-changing force at both ends.

The Warriors, remember, lost two of the first three games of those finals to a short-handed Cavaliers team. There was grave concern in the Golden State camp that Cleveland, even without the injured Kevin Love and having lost Kyrie Irving after Game 1, had seized control of the series.

I know this terrain doubly well because I was the lone voter in 2007 who chose Tim Duncan over Tony Parker as the finals M.V.P. when San Antonio swept James’s Cavaliers. I was criticized for that, too.

In 2007, I used an argument on Duncan’s behalf similar to one laid out expertly by Adams in last week’s piece — that Iguodala’s offensive success wouldn’t have been possible without all the defensive attention Curry attracted. That Warriors team, as statistics cited by Adams illustrate, needed Curry on the floor for nearly 43 minutes per game because it could barely survive without him.

I made my 2007 vote because, as electric as Parker was, my contention was that the Spurs could never have dominated the Cavaliers to the extent that they did without Duncan’s tremendous influence offensively and defensively. I was outvoted nine to one.

The big difference for me in 2015 is that the Warriors were not dominating. Not even close. They were borderline reeling until Iguodala was moved into the starting lineup for Game 4.

That’s why he got my vote and presumably six more.

It also didn’t hurt that Iguodala, Golden State’s defense-first veteran, matched Curry’s 25 points in the Game 6 clincher.

Q: Is Thibs still a front-runner? — @JohnJovi64 from Twitter

Stein: Definitely. If you polled league insiders, they would still regard Tom Thibodeau as “the” front-runner for the Knicks’ coaching vacancy, even as new candidates seem to emerge daily.

It’s the N.B.A., so anything is possible, but there has been no indication (yet) that anything has dramatically changed. Most league observers see the former Nets Coach Kenny Atkinson as the biggest threat to Thibodeau’s candidacy, given that Atkinson’s reputation for developing young talent would appear to mesh well with the Knicks’ young roster.

More from me on the Knicks’ coaching search can be found here.

Q: What about Lance Stephenson? — Jason Ashmawi (Myrtle Beach, S.C.)

Stein: Jason’s question was posed in response to the recent listing of veterans like Jamal Crawford, J.R. Smith, Isaiah Thomas and DeMarcus Cousins as players who became eligible Tuesday at noon to be signed during the N.B.A.’s weeklong transaction window.

Those players are free to sign with any because they were all free agents as of March 11 — and because none of them played in a league outside the N.B.A. this season.

The Indiana Pacers were indeed exploring the feasibility of signing Stephenson in March before the N.B.A. season was suspended indefinitely. But because Stephenson played in China this season, he was ruled out of the restart, like any player who was under contract abroad this season.

Credit...Todd Kirkland/Associated Press

The N.B.A. has increased the traveling party size for the 22 teams invited to resume the season in Florida from 35 to 37. Teams must turn in a roster of eligible players, from a minimum of 13 to a maximum of 17, on July 1.

This was the 12th consecutive season that Detroit failed to win a playoff series. The job of mapping out the Pistons’ path back to contention falls now to Troy Weaver, who was formally hired last Thursday as Detroit’s new general manager after he spent the previous 12 seasons working alongside the highly rated Sam Presti in Oklahoma City.

Sixteen of the union’s 30 team player representatives are in their first, second or third N.B.A. seasons, supporting the long-held perception that many teams don’t put great importance in the position by selecting representatives who lack tenure.

Five of those 16 player representatives are rookies: Boston’s Grant Williams, Cleveland’s Dylan Windler, Indiana’s Goga Bitadze, New Orleans’ Nicolo Melli and the Los Angeles Clippers’ Terance Mann. Rather than polling the union’s full membership, the player representatives approved the N.B.A.’s 22-team format to resume the 2019-20 season by a vote of 28-0, meaning two teams did not even vote.

The league’s latest timeline to complete the 2019-20 season allocated 75 days — two days longer than previously anticipated. Teams that reach the N.B.A. finals would be required to play up to 36 games in that span. (In the unlikely event that a No. 8 or No. 9 seed in either conference played two play-in games before the playoffs and then went a full seven games in each of the four playoff rounds, that number would rise to 38).

Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@marcsteinnba). Send any other feedback to marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com.

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