Nylon Calculus: Will a delayed NBA postseason let contenders rehab?

If the NBA plays its postseason after the coronavirus pandemic subsides, it could be a valuable recovery opportunity for several playoff teams.

After Rudy Gobert became the first NBA player to test positive for the novel coronavirus, the league took the unprecedented step of suspending play to try and prevent the infection from spreading further among players and team staffs.

The decision prioritizes the health and welfare of league stakeholders but it has enormous financial implications, for both players and owners, and the league hasn’t committed yet to canceling the season completely. The current plan, according to commissioner Adam Silver, is to re-evaluate in 30 days to see if it’s possible to resume play.

There are lots of variables at work and the priority right now is rightly focused on keeping everyone as safe as possible. However, if the pandemic subsides and play resumes at some point later this summer, the physical landscape of the league could look very different. The previous NBA schedule is so jam-packed it’s hard to grasp just how significant a 30-day break is in the middle of a season.

Several playoff teams have been waiting for the return of key players from both long- and short-term injuries and could have them reintegrated into their lineups in time for a re-launched postseason a month from now. The graph below shows a few such pieces, with both the date they went out and either their projected date of return or projected date of re-evaluation (with the caveat that all of those dates are somewhat murky.)

Every one of those players could theoretically be able to play after a 30-day delay, in some cases with a significant window of time to rebuild their fitness levels after an extended layoff or accommodate a longer recovery time than anticipated. If the league was forced to move things back even further, starting the playoffs after 60 days or even an abbreviated version after 90 days, each of these players could have another month or more to recover from the muscular-skeletal injuries that have been bothering them.

Players like Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving — whose injuries have included such lengthy recovery timelines that there are currently no meaningful dates projected for their return, beyond the beginning of next season — could even have decisions to make about whether or not they’d like to get back on the court early. Of course, the stakes may not be high enough to take the risk, pushing rehab timelines for a long-shot run at a title that will always have an asterisk next to it.

Again, there is a lot of work to be done in the interest of public safety and a lot of logistics to be navigated before NBA play could resume. In the meantime, here is hoping that the spread of the virus can be contained as quickly as possible, both inside and outside the league.

To date, more than 115,000 coronavirus cases (and 4,200 deaths) have been confirmed in more than 120 countries worldwide, including the United States, which has seen more than 1,000 affected Americans and 31 deaths. The World Health Organization declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on Jan. 30 and countries have implemented curfews, travel bans and mandatory quarantines to help prevent its spread.

For more information about COVID-19, visit the CDC’s website or the website for your state’s Department of Health.