Sports Time Radio

With the big spike in positive Covid-19 test in Florida recently you have to wonder if the restart to the NBA season is in jeopardy. It seems as though the league itself isn’t too concerned and they’re ready to follow the plan they have in place, but you have to wonder if and ho many players have questions.

As we know right now there are two players Avery Bradley of the Los Angeles Lakers and Willie Cauley-Stein of the Dallas Mavericks who have notified their teams and the league that they’ll be skipping the remainder of the season. The NBA stated quite a while ago that there would be no penalty for players that didn’t want to play in these with the exception of a loss of salary.

Nothing against Bradley or Cauley-Stein, but neither is a big name in the NBA and even though Bradley had found his way into the Lakers stating line up neither player will be a big loss for their respective teams. The question now is: could we see a marquee player opt out of going to Orlando for these games?

Kevin Durant now of the Brooklyn Nets did come out and say that if he was healthy he wouldn’t play in these games, but I’m not sure how much I believe that statement. this is pretty easy to say when you know that you’re not capable of playing in these games anyway. Durant missed the entire 2019-20 season with an Achilles injury and he and the Nets have decided to hold him out of the restarted season. There’s also a possibility that Durant is being a good teammate. Remember his Nets teammate Kyrie Irving was trying to rally support for NBA players to skip the restarted season in Florida. Who better to help out you cause than one of the top players in the NBA.

Durant is a two time NBA champion and he also won MVP in both of those finals series; he has also won the league MVP for the 2013-14 season. I think a healthy Durant would be one of the first guys ready to get the season restarted. There where also quite a few people who thought that Durant was the best player in the NBA even better than LeBron James before he got injured and I’m not sure that someone with his kind of talent would actually consider sitting out. Add in the fact that a returning Durant would make the Nets a serious title contender coming out of the Eastern Conference. Would he really walk away from a chance to win another NBA championship?

While I’m not buying the Durant story their is a player who is a big key to his teams success that has been rumored to be considering skipping the games in Orlando and that player is Lou Williams of the Los Angeles Clippers.

Williams might not have the name value as a player like Durant or Irving does, but he is a huge part of what has made the Clippers successful this season. Williams is one of if  not the best sixth man in the NBA. He’s played in 60 games for the Clippers this season coming off the bench in 52 f those games. He averages 18.7 points per game while playing an average of a little over 29 minutes per game. Williams also hands out also averages 5.7 assists per game and shoots 36.3% from behind the 3-point line. The Clippers may be looked at as Kawhi Leonard’s team with Paul George being the second best player on the team, but if they where to lose Williams their chances of winning the NBA title would take a huge blow.

Heading back into the restart of the season the Clippers are the #2 seed in the Western Conference and they’re looked at as the Lakers biggest obstacle to the NBA Finals. he Clippers actually kick off the restart of the NBA season against the Lakers on July 30th, but it looks like we’ll have to wait and see if Williams will be joining his teammates for that games and the remainder of the NBA season.

The NBA released it’s schedule for the restart of the season last night and as I mentioned the Clippers vs. the Lakers is the late game on July 30th. The first game that officially restarts the NBA season is the Utah Jazz vs. the New Orleans Pelicans. As you can see the NBA ha set their return up perfectly for television. In the first game the fans will get to see Zion Williamson and then in the night cap you get the Lakers against their biggest challenger in the Western Conference the Clippers. There’s absolutely k no way that this wasn’t planned, but I’m sure that TNT who will be airing these games on their network is thrilled with these two games.

July 30th gets the NBA season restarted with just those two games, but on July 31st there are six games ready for tip off. You’ll be able to watch the Memphis Grizzlies vs. the Portland Trailblazers on NBATV while ESPN has two games that night. They start off with the Boston Celtics vs. the Milwaukee Buck while the second game features the Houston Rockets vs. the Dallas Mavericks. Interestingly there are five games scheduled for August 1st and four of them will be televised by ESPN; so if you’re a fan of the NBA their are going to be plenty of games for you to watch.

It look like the NBA is set and ready to return; are you excited? Or should the NBA and it’s players have concerns about the recent upswing in positive test for Covid-19 in Florida? Let’s hope that the virus takes a down turn in the time we have now and the NBA season restarting, but will have to see how that plays out.

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