This past Wednesday, the sun came out for the first time in several months. Maybe not literally, but metaphorically it was a sign that good things were starting to return. I’m talking of course about The NBA. Ahead of their season restart on July 30, several channels began to air their scrimmage games. Beginning with a fun little game between The Los Angeles Clippers and The Orlando Magic, the world was given a teaser for what was to come. For months many have wondered if this would go off without a hitch, managing to be anywhere near entertaining given current situations. Would it be worth watching, or would this whole thing just be a depressing mess, constantly spiraling through nonstop mishaps?
The truth is that I personally would’ve been happy if I saw The Los Angeles Clippers play in an empty arena. I love the sport so much that I just want to see an officially sanctioned game. Give me the plays, the baskets, and my imagination will fill in the rest.
So as you can guess, my standards were much, much lower than what they ended up achieving. I think a lot of it is due to the time that we’re living in. When COVID-19 has taken away so many great minds, the world feels too fragile to give us nice things. I could respect every player who opted out by July 1 because life is more important than basketball. That doesn’t stop me from being worried when so and so tested positive, making me simultaneously worry about their health and wonder how that would shift gameplay in significant ways.
I suppose in a country that hasn’t gotten much else right, I am relieved that The NBA has remained one of the greatest voices during this pandemic. They have taken every conscientious measure to make sure every player is alive and healthy. They’re willing to support their desires to promote Black Lives Matter topics (The WNBA even went further by featuring Breonna Taylor’s name on every jersey). When it was announced that 0% of players tested positive for Coronavirus, it gave me some small hope that they found some miracle cure. If nothing else, it convinced me that they could play at The Bank of Oklahoma Center and cause less of a viral outbreak than the president did last month.
Having The NBA back is a miracle. Considering everything that’s been going on, it still feels strange to be where we are, where you can turn on ABC and find The WNBA games on. So little of the fundamental structure of the game has changed. Even the idea of needing to stay distant and take extensive health measures feels absent. This isn’t from negligence, but I guess a sense of relief that everybody on that court is healthy. They can high-five and do the familiar pageantry that we’ve come to expect. Maybe we don’t get as many noteworthy interviews, but the heart of the game is alive and well. There are at least a dozen scrimmage games now in the books, giving us peeks into what the season will produce.
This post isn’t to present a bias towards one team (that comes later). What I want to do with this post is to highlight my immediate thoughts of watching a bunch of NBA and WNBA scrimmage games.
As you can guess, I’m just addicted to the comings and goings of players. Before Wednesday, the whole thing was behind a veil of sorts, watching players arrive in Florida and entering quarantines. I’ve heard stories about how The Los Angeles Lakers’ Dwight Howard doesn’t like masks and that The Clippers’ Doc Rivers is most likely a snitch. I even remember hearing about The Denver Nuggets’ Bol Bol racing people on bicycles. This idea that we were preparing for something special has given me hope over the past few weeks. Once it was clear that things would go on, I felt an eagerness that has been absent for a while. Short of opening live theater, I am glad to see sports return.
If I can be honest, the immediate set-up is arguably the best approach they could’ve taken. To compare, I have also been watching MLB games to see how they would handle their surroundings. It’s very much an outdoors sports. You can’t help but notice the empty stands as the ball flies out of the park. The way that some broadcasts have gotten around this is by digitally inserting fans that wouldn’t look out of place on a PS2 game. It’s jarring not only because they’re clearly cartoons, but also because the shots are inconsistent and replays often ignore “the fans” entirely. It’s a mess even if the sport itself is going along just fine. Others have taken to putting cardboard cutouts in the crowd, and that’s far more charming and wholesome.
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| It becomes worse the closer you look |
In that regard, basketball has one advantage that others don’t. They get to perform indoors in Florida. You can work around obstacles such as blocking the empty seats with screens that flash logos and various messages. Even if neither team is often considered the home team (The Magic are the closest to have that honor), the more major team’s logos are produced onto the screens, creating a sensory overload that is meant to draw you in. While it makes the outer rims of the frame feel claustrophobic and creeping in on the court, it’s far less distracting than you’d think.
This is especially true because of how the cameras work. Without needing to emphasize fans, they are more allowed to film from new angles that don’t accentuate the empty space. At most we’ll get overhead screens cut off, making it all feel more insular. If you compare to regular coverage, there’s not much difference. The most that can be said is that the players feel somehow bigger. It could just be that there’s no juxtaposition fighting against the focal point. It forces the viewer to be more focused on the game.
The announcers are reporting off-base at various locations. In some cases they’re even reporting from their home courts, creating this eerie juxtaposition of one person in a cavernous room. Everyone is having fun with it, and I think it comes from the fact that everyone is just rejuvenated to have basketball back in their lives. After several Zoom chats going over the ifs and buts, we’ve gotten somewhere resembling normalcy. Save for announcers pointing out their own feelings about the sport returning, it’s business as usual and what’s left is to take in the small court details that are miraculously not a problem.
For starters, there are health measures in place that are invisible if you don’t know to look for them. The most apparent is that the average quarter has been reduced to 10 minutes. With that said, that hasn’t made competition any less fierce. I watched a game with The Houston Rockets and The Toronto Raptors on Friday that was refreshing for their sheer energy and desire to play a competitive game. The Rockets’ P.J. Tucker was practically smacking every surface due to the rush of adrenaline. The liveliness of games is not in jeopardy, thankfully.
If there’s anything that’s awkward about the time constraints, it’s that half-time feels unceremonious. Without any big show to put on, it goes straight to the strategy and practice for the second half. As games have progressed, the conventional half-time report has returned and has made it far more tolerable, even if there are not that many games to pull stats from to fill space.
Other noteworthy shifts to the court include the use of judges. While the players or referees aren’t presented all that differently, it’s interesting to look at the judges’ booths. Because of its transparency, their layer of glass between them and the outside world isn’t distracting on TV. It’s only when a technical foul needs to be challenged that you really notice that it looks like the referees are talking to bank tellers. As far as I know, they don’t interact with any of the other staff, working from their confined space.
The players’ areas are a bit odd. As mentioned, there doesn’t seem to be all that much different from how they play. While every person is spaced out, it doesn’t look like they’re six feet apart, at most a few chairs’ length separating them from each other, with some sitting right behind each other. Similarly, when they have time outs they have safety areas where they have enough space to spread out folding chairs, though even that again feels claustrophobic given CDC guidelines. But hey, if nobody gets sick and it passed the bar, I’m fine with that.
The same can be said for The WNBA games, which are almost identical in this regard. So much of the cautionary details have been approached so effectively that you’re not likely to notice. It isn’t like MLB where your shortcomings are a bit obvious. The only other sport that could arguably get away with not showing crowds is The PGA, though I doubt they made it into an art form like The NBA. You can tell that they are playing in an empty room, but only if you have to think about it. In a game of optics, they know where to focus the viewers’ attention.
If there’s anything that may be a bit off about this whole endeavor, it’s the other tools that are used to make this FEEL like an NBA game. Because it is empty, you don’t have organic crowd noises. Apparently, the sound of shoes scuffing on the court is too unpleasant for the folks of ESPN and NBA TV. Some have filled that space with canned audience noise. It’s a white noise that never feels unnatural but feels like an overcompensation. Similarly, the need to have the sound effects boards are an odd beast. I never loved them, but given that they felt unnatural to begin with, they’re more in place than the canned audience noise.
If they kept the sound effects, I would be fine. It creates something instinctual in the audience that has just become part of the sport. However, I’ve noticed that the change in acoustics means that we’re more in tune with court play now. You can hear the players make calls mid-play, and it’s a wonderful insight that I don’t want any noise to overplay. Just let us hear them yelling to pass the ball, giving those grunts as they bump into each other. Use this rare perspective to make us feel something inherent to the game that is often reduced to mic’ed players. Don’t let canned voices keep us from appreciating this.
With all of this said, I’ve heard that The NBA has more in line for the conventional season. There may be crowd participation, and I am curious to see how things will wind up. For now, I think that these scrimmage games work as a test run. Even if this is the equivalent of a preseason run (basically, none of it matters), it feels exciting and makes me eager to see what the full enchilada looks like.
It’s also been fun to see how all of the players have changed since the quarantine. It’s mostly in their hair, but even that has been entertaining. Even The Brooklyn Nets’ Jarret Allen (the BEST hair in The NBA, no question) has had his afro grow a bit unruly. That’s the thing for fans. Even the small things that have nothing to do with the game are exciting to witness for the first time in months. So much of the industry is kicking back up, and the average game gives me endless topics to now write about, to think through my own personal strategy for the official season.
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| Name a more iconic doo |
I won’t say that it’s essential to watch these scrimmage games, but they are far more effective than they have any right to be. Whereas you can feel the nothingness of preseason games, I don’t get the same sensation right now. Maybe it’s because so much has changed since they last played, but I can’t help but feel like everything is going to go right. It won’t be the perfect ending, but all things considered, it will wind up far more successful than I’d ever have thought in April. Now there’s hope that we’ll at least have this season concluded and in the books.
The wait for the 2020-2021 season will be painful, but at least we’ll have some certainty on how to progress if all of this goes according to plan. I’m thrilled that this is going right, serving as a shining beacon in a dark time. Whether or not “my team” wins, I’m more relieved that they got to finish the season healthy and in a game recognized as basketball. It’s a miracle that makes you appreciate these superfluous joys all the more. I hope we don’t take the next few months for granted. I sure won’t.
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