PORTLAND, Pray. – Just in the new year, the Houston Rockets and the Portland Trail Blazers played the deciding game of the NBA 2020.
It was intended to be the moment game of any of the groups of the young season; It is the Rockets’ first, as their first game on Wednesday against the Oklahoma City Thunder was postponed due to positive COVID-19 testing and touch search, leaving them without the minimum of 8 players available. They didn’t arrive until nine o’clock on Saturday morning because the league decided not to suspend James Harden for violating security protocols to be redeemed.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a Thursday interview on ESPN’s The Jump that the league had not suspended Harden for the latest video because “it’s Christmas” and “it’s a first offense,” suggesting that the coronavirus takes vacations and that all players will get a loose pass to blow up the more than 150 pages of regulation the league has put into position to avoid precisely what the Rockets had to face last week.
All of this raises the question of what we are doing here.
The NBA chose not to play in another bubble this season because no one, not the league office, team leaders, or players, were looking for another bubble. Disney World, a summer success, commissioned about $150 million from the league, and players brazenly talked about the intellectual accusation of being away from their families for the three months they spent in Florida.
Which is pretty smart, if the league and players need to take the same precautions that the rest of the corporation has been invited to take since March. To all the intelligence, Silver has accumulated this year as a sports commissioner who has stepd forward and directed the reaction to an unprecedented public fitness crisis, first by closing the NBA in March and then through the bubble without a COVID-19 positive Tests: the league technique for a bubble-free season so far has been similar to the NFL and Major League Style baseball cross your hands and hope for the best.
And so the Rockets’ overtime loss on Saturday in Portland was set against the dual background of a superstar vocally seeking to get out of town and a stark reminder of the precarious position of the league looking to play this season at fresh air. bubble. .
Before the opening week, the Harden saga was basically played on Twitter and educational camp, when a star player who appeared continuously in videos in clubs without a mask, a pandemic rather than education can be agitated as a team chemistry problem. The debut gave an idea of how the season will unfold.
The first indications are that Harden, his teammates and head coach Stephen Silas for the first time should act as if nothing ordinary is happening, either with Harden’s open preference for playing elsewhere or with almost a portion of the team lately in fitness and league protection. Protocol. .
Here’s Harden, interviewed Saturday morning to think about the NBA’s $50,000 fine and the four-day quarantine he had to spend before dressing up in Portland: “Year 12 for me. I’m extremely happy to be here to play. I never need to take basketball for granted. “
The Harden who spoke in Portland looked a lot like the guy who led the league by scoring in the last three seasons and won the 2017-18 Most Valuable Player award, despite a lack of education, took his unsurpassed 3 steps back. to the hoop and drops the firing line at will and ran the offensive as it does, reminding the global and any team that might or may not be interested in exchanging for it, why it is worth dedicating himself to his last month of activity.
The uncertain part, of course, is that Harden’s last month of activity makes the already hercúlea NBA task of completing this season even more difficult. The League ruled Harden is not eligible to play in the game opposed to the Thunder he eventually postponed; if this game had been played, it would have lost $567,000 in salary.
Quarantine negative tests through John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins for seven days (they will leave Monday night in Denver and make their Rockets debut at home on Thursday) to locate contacts as they let Harden pass a mask with a pat on his wrist. it’s hard to understand.
Star players get a preferential remedy in all NBA organizations, but if this season ends, Harden’s ability to create his own set of non-public protection commands can’t be treated like Paul George and Kawhi Leonard doing the show. Clippers practice, or like Kevin Durant. and Kyrie Irving clarifying the best points Offensive Nets on Instagram Live.
Harden’s teammate Danuel House Jr. was ejected from the bubble for less than Harden made sure everyone watched the video so Houston couldn’t stop him.
House was one of nine Rockets players who spoke Saturday and one of five who played more than 35 minutes, and that will be the case until the other Houston players can return. only team he can think of.
Silver needs to do everything possible to achieve a season while keeping other players at other standards. Harden did his best to remind the Rockets why they want to turn it into an industry soon and to remind other groups why, in spite of everything, they had to. Call general manager Rafael Stone to make a deal.
The NBA sought a season played in empty arenas to be explained through its ingenuity in the battle against the coronavirus and a busy and exciting crop of emerging stars. What we’re getting is a season explained through James Harden.
Sean Highkin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Se graduated from the University of Oregon and lives in Portland. His paintings have been revered through the Association of Professional Basketball Writers. Follow him on Twitter, Instagram and in the B/R app.
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