The Whiteboard: 5 things for NBA fans to cling to right now

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Life without NBA basketball has been tough. Life without sports altogether has been even tougher. Life without being able to physically meet up with friends, go to restaurants or do much else outside of quarantine, on top of not having sports, has been toughest.

With that being said, today’s rendition of The Whiteboard will try to take a more optimistic approach. The 2019-20 NBA season won’t be resuming for quite some time (if it does at all), and it’s worrisome the league is discussing withholding pay from its players in the event of canceled games.

But that doesn’t mean we have to stew in negativity, and in that light, there’s still plenty for hoop fans to look forward to in the coming weeks. None of these things substitutes for real NBA basketball, and not all of these items may be your personal cup of tea, but these are the things we’ll be clinging to until the league is back in action.

NBA 2K players-only tournament

Starting this evening, the league will be televising an NBA 2K players-only tournament featuring 16 players in an event that will take place over 10 days. While the players obviously won’t be linking up in person, the single-elimination tournament will be televised on ESPN and ESPN2, making it pretty close to must-see television for NBA fans.

The selected field only matched some of our own picks, but the 16 who were chosen were seeded based on their NBA 2K20 rating and their tenure in the league. The group includes Kevin Durant, Trae Young, Devin Booker, Donovan Mitchell, Zach LaVine, DeMarcus Cousins and Deandre Ayton, and the bracket and schedule can be found here.

Watching other people play video games may not be everyone’s favorite way to spend their Friday night, but during this quarantine, tuning in will at least allow fans to see some of their favorite NBA faces grace the television screen again.

The Last Dance

The Scheme was pretty much a bust, leaving The Last Dance to fill the need for a quality basketball documentary (or docuseries, in this case). Luckily, it’s pretty hard to go wrong with taking an in-depth look at Michael Jordan and the ’90s Chicago Bulls, especially since it promises to deliver a ton of never-before-seen footage over the course of its 10-episode run starting April 19.

Love him, hate him or perpetually undervalue him, MJ was the original GOAT for a reason. A series that dives into his final title run during the 1997-98 NBA season, even if that wasn’t the most interesting year of the Bulls’ six championships in the ’90s, promises to be riveting TV that sports fans everywhere will be tuning in to watch.

Aside from the NFL Draft, this is the premier sporting event of the next few months. If the upcoming onslaught of anecdotes, unseen footage, memes and storylines don’t have you excited, you’re doing a much better job coping without NBA basketball than the rest of us.

 Big3’s reality TV show/tournament

Full disclosure: The Big3 was never priority viewing for me, but with literally every other sport on hiatus, I would welcome it back in a heartbeat like it was the damn NBA playoffs. To that end, this upcoming tournament and TV show in early May should pique plenty of basketball fans’ interest.

Partnering with “Big Brother” producers, the Big3 show promises a reality TV format televising the first quarantined basketball tournament of any kind. Upon receiving a negative coronavirus test, players and officials will be quarantined in the same Los Angeles home normally provided by the Big3 for a three-week tourney featuring 16 players. It could include some of the world’s best female players as well.

Maybe it won’t be as bat-s**t insane as Tiger King, but reality TV and basketball sounds like a pretty good mix right about now.

Players getting healthy

I mean, aside from “getting healthy” as in “getting over or staying the hell away from COVID-19,” this hiatus will also give dozens of players time to get their bodies right. While falling out of shape and losing conditioning are unavoidable realities, this massive break right before the home stretch of the season ensures that if the 2019-20 campaign resumes at any point this summer/fall, everyone will be well-rested.

That’s great news for superstars who have their eyes set on winning a ring like LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kawhi Leonard, but it’s also beneficial to guys who have been dealing with or recovering from injuries all season long.

Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, Kyrie Irving, Victor Oladipo, Jusuf Nurkic, Blake Griffin, John Wall, Marvin Bagley — whether they’ve already come back, were planning to return soon or are sitting out until 2020-21 no matter what, this hiatus buys them more time to get their bodies fully right again.

A renewed investment in NBA basketball

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and people always want what they can’t have. It’s why so many people find self-isolating at home so difficult — people telling them what to do makes it that much harder to listen.

Be honest: About a month ago, most people would’ve rather flaked on weekend plans, stayed at home and relaxed watching Netflix, right? Now that it’s all they can do, everyone wants to go out again. When we had NBA basketball in our lives and everything was normal, shortening the season from its 82-game slate was a hot-button issue. Now, it sounds ludicrous we ever took each and every single one of those 82 games for granted.

When the NBA finally returns, whether it’s to finish off the 2019-20 campaign or to begin 2020-21 with a fresh start, basketball fans’ interest and love for the league will be higher than ever. It’s weird to predict this kind of widespread epiphany just three weeks into quarantine life, and it might not even last through the next full season of basketball, but we can definitely look forward to the day when the NBA is back for the pure jubilation it will bring.

#OtherContent

Our own Zach Hood has you covered with the latest 2020 NBA Mock Draft, and in this edition, both the Chicago Bulls and New York Knicks walk away happy.

ESPN’s Jackie MacMullan examined how NBA coaches are navigating through an unprecedented season, while her colleague Zach Lowe wrote another illuminating piece on how NBA players are parenting through this crisis.

Brendon Kleen has three quick lessons from the 2019-20 season for ya.

Always read Ian Levy, who took a look at what the Memphis Grizzlies have seen from Ja Morant in his latest rookie review for Nylon Calculus.