Sports Time Radio

As us sports fans meander around with just the breadcrumbs that the NFL leaves for us to devour it’s time to make some decisions on the big two sports that currently have their seasons postponed.

It feels like an eternity since the National Hockey League or the National Basketball Association have played a game. At this point unless you’re a hardcore fan of either league do you even care if they comeback? Or is it time for them to just let this season go and move on to next season?

Just off the top of your head; who had the best record in the NHL? Did you know that it was the Boston Bruins with 100 points? Did you get that right?

Okay then we move on. Who has the best record in the NBA? This one might’ve been a little easier for you since the NBA receives more high level media coverage than the NHL does. So did you get this right? It’s the Milwaukee Bucks with a record of 53-12.

Originally the NBA had it’s teams looking into arena availability for as late as August, but lately the biggest news in the NBA is the fact that Shaquille O’Neal had visited the Tiger King zoo. Is this what the NBA has come to.

The NBA, National Basketball Players Association and 2K have partnered to produce an NBA 2K tournament that will air on ESPN and ESPN2 starting Friday, it was announced.

The NBA 2K20 Player Tournament will run through April 11, according to a statement, and will begin airing on ESPN on Friday with a half-hour pre-show at 7 p.m. ET. The tournament will run on ESPN until 8:30 p.m. and then is scheduled to transition to ESPN2 until 11:30 p.m.

The winner of the event will receive $100,000 to give to a charity in support of the Covid-19 relief efforts.

Sixteen NBA players will compete in this event with five of them already being announced. Kevin Durant, Trae Young, Hassan Whiteside, Donovan Mitchell and Devin Booker are the five that have been announced.

Players were seeded based on their player rating in NBA 2K20, with Durant, a 96 overall in the game, as the No. 1 seed. Players who were tied in overall rating were seeded based on tenure in the league.

Here’s the list of the other players that will be competing. Andre Drummond, Zach LaVine, Montrezl Harrell, Domantas Sabonis, Deandre Ayton, DeMarcus Cousins, Michael Porter Jr., Rui Hachimura, Patrick Beverly, Harrison Barnes and Derrick Jones Jr.

Is this something that you’re interested in? I can tell you this won;t be something that I’ll be watching. I’m not a big fan of the NBA as it is; so watching players play a video game isn’t going to draw my attention. If you do watch this please let me know what you think of this event.

The National Hockey League Players Association surveyed nearly 600 players before the 2019-20 season was put on hold. Here are the results they ended up with.

Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins was selected the most complete player. Crosby had 47 points in in 41 games; 16 goals and 31 assists and his 30 points; 11 goals and 19 assists since January 14th are tied for 5th in the NHL.

Crosby received 45.56% of the votes beating out Patrice Bergeron of the Boston Bruins who received 25.44 % of the vote. Aleksander Barkov of the Florida Panthers (7.50%) and Ryan O’Reilly of the St. Louis Blues (5.33%) rounded out the four players receiving votes.

Crosby’s career track record which includes two Hart Trophy awards as NHL most valuable player (2007, 2014) and three Stanley Cup championships (2009, 2016, 2017) also made him the top choice as the player among any position you’d most want if you needed to win one game. Crosby received 44.03% of the votes in that category beating out Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers who received 30.53% of the vote.

McDavid did dominant the category for best forward. McDavid who is the Oilers captain scored 97 points; 34 goals and 63 assists during the season. McDavid picked up 68.35% of the vote in the best forward category. McDavid’s teammate Leon Draisaitl finished second in the voting. Draisaitl had 110 points; 43 goals and 67 assists during the season.

Victor Hedman of the Tampa Bay Lighting was selected as the best defenseman for the second season in a row. Hedman received 37.88% of the vote beating John Carlson of the Washington Capitals who picked up 21.35% of the vote. Carlson is the front runner for the Norris trophy which is given to the best defenseman in the league, but he lost this vote to Hedman.

Carey Price of the Montreal Canadiens became the repeat winner of the best goaltender award by beating out Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lighting. Price received  41.55% of the vote while Vasilevskiy got 17.09% of the vote.

Marie-Philip Poulin edged out Hilary Knight and was named best female hockey player. Poulin won with 39.92% of the vote while Knight ended up with 36.29% of the vote. Poulin was a forward on the two-time Olympic gold medal winning teams in 2010 and 2014. Poulin also scored the game winning goal in each of the championship games against the United States.

Do you agree with the way the players voted or would you have given these awards to other players? Please let me know who you would’ve voted for in the comment section.

Did either of these things that the NBA and NHL make you interested in them returning and finishing out the season. If you’d like to see either or both leagues return I’d be very interested in knowing how you think the leagues should finish out their season. Would you like to see the NHL and the NBA finish out their regular seasons or would you like to see them just go right into the playoffs?

While we went through what the NBA and the NHL have been up to recently I’d be curious to know how you’re passing the time without sports. Also I could use some tip to get through this time myself.

The Sports Time Radio podcast is still up and running. You can listen to the Sports Time Radio podcast live on BlogTalkRadio.com, but if you miss the podcast live just head on over to TuneIn.com and you can listen whenever you’d like to.

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