Everything You Need To Get Hyped For The Return Of NBA Basketball
141 days ago we witnessed one of the craziest days in NBA history when shit hit the fan, the Thunder game was cancelled, Rudy Gobert tested positive, and the league shut down within 30 minutes. We then went into a hiatus filled with unknown and doubt. Nobody knew if we would resume the 2019-20 season. But then an idea was formed and boom, we got the bubble. Then the bubble worked and here we are. With actual basketball back in our lives again.
Seeing as how it's been so goddamn long, I wanted to give you a starter pack of sorts to get your mind right for what is about to be in your life from now until basically October (barring any sort of outbreak). Congratulations on making it through. We made it.
1. Roundball Rock
1. Best Plays
3. Best Handles
3. Best Dunks
4. LeBron
5. Zion
6. Giannis
7. Rookies
8. Shaqtin a Fool
9. Clutch plays
10. James Harden
11. Luka
You get the idea. This season was by far one of the most competitive and wide open seasons in recent memory. Outside of the Bucks deciding to never lose and put up historic net ratings, point differential, all that shit, everyone else was pretty much close the entire way before the break. As a reminder, here is how things stand as we enter tonight
so yeah, all the seeding games are going to matter for pretty much everyone involved. With no home court in the bubble everything is truly up for grabs. Will teams like BOS/PHI/UTA/TOR/MIL be worse off now that they can't feed off the energy of their great home crowds? Or does not having to go on the road help someone more like PHI (10-24), POR (11-23) make a legit run? Will teams risk sitting guys for health while seeding is close if it means potentially ending up with a tougher playoff path? There are so many questions that I can't wait to find the answers to over these next few months. I've said it time and time again but whoever wins this whole damn thing deserves absolutely zero asterisks. In fact, it's my belief that this will be the hardest championship to win in NBA history. When have we seen a playoffs in this type of environment that required this type of mental focus? When has a playoff field been mostly 100% healthy (sorry Rockets rans and Eric Gordon)? How many years has there been this many teams that could actually climb to the top of the mountain? We have POR getting NBA title hype and they aren't even in the goddamn playoffs yet!
My one piece of advice for today would be don't let the haters and the hardos of the comment section burst your bubble. It's OK to be excited about the NBA being back because basketball fucking rules. We've waited this long, don't let anything bring you down today. Today is our day.