October 30, 2020
Late October normally coincides with the kickoff of a new NBA season, but we're a long way from normal in 2020. After building a successful bubble environment in Disney World to finish the 2019-20 season after a months-long hiatus, discussions for the 2020-21 season are now fully underway. From the sound of things, the NBA is pushing to get the league to start again in late December, reminding players of the money they stand to lose if they push the start back further.
Should the Sixers have a rooting interest one way or another? The other plan floating around is to start in late January. Starting sooner than later would certainly help get the foul taste of last season out of their mouths, but it would have consequences for an organization in the midst of an upheaval, which can't be taken lightly.
With that in mind, we're running a pair of pieces at PhillyVoice looking at both sides of it, trying to find the good and the bad. As the headline suggests, this is the article about the upside, and how a quicker return could hurt Philadelphia.
As we discussed in a previous article, there's reason to believe a December start could make life tough for Philly in the early stages of the season. But there's reason to believe they could get off to a fast start compared to the teams they have to beat out for seeding.
Having exited the playoffs earlier than the teams they are competing against for Eastern Conference supremacy — the Heat, the Bucks, the Raptors, the Celtics — Philadelphia has had more time to rest on their laurels and prepare for the 2020-21 season. In theory, they should have fresher bodies, fresher minds, and with a new coach in place, fresher attitudes to get together and get things right.
Look around the league and you're already seeing signs that other players and teams might not be ready for the grind of the season this soon. Lakers guard Danny Green recently told Raja Bell on the Real Ones podcast that he didn't think we'd even see LeBron James play during the first month of the season, fresh off a Finals run that carried L.A. into October.
To be clear, the Sixers have a long way to go before they're even in the conversation with the Lakers next season, and they're one of only two teams to go that deep into the playoffs and 2020 calendar. Still, this disjointed schedule that's still up in the air is going to screw with everyone, and the less time teams have to come down from the last one, the more it stands to reason they'll struggle early next season. That threatens to make some "marquee" matchups a little softer than they initially look, assuming the Sixers don't play all cupcakes in the early days.
Setting aside fatigue, the Sixers also have a lot more to prove than some other teams. Embarrassed in the first round by a rival, they should be coming back hungry and ready to show they aren't about to fade out of the title contention picture in the East.
(Of course, we believed that same thing after their stinging defeat to Toronto in 2019, only for Joel Embiid to come out sulking last season because of an admittedly poor series of roster decisions. It all still falls on the shoulders of their stars. But if they don't come out ready to lead and dominate, the timing of the schedule hardly matters anyway.)
Nobody really knows how free agency is going to shake out because nobody knows how the world is going to shake out. With a worldwide pandemic and a presidential election unfolding, there are major variables beyond the NBA's hands that will end up impacting the league one way or another.
Finance is at the center of everything in a December restart, with the league making it clear to players a lot of money stands to be gained if they can get rolling with next season sooner (and conversely, that money will come out of their pockets if they start later). But there's still a level of considerable uncertainty over money, and that could end up working out to the benefit of the Sixers.
While they don't have many ways to retain talent this offseason, the market will artificially shrink for a lot of players because of how different owners and franchises respond to the financial climate. Teams have already begun the process of prepping their fans for downturns, leaking vague excuses through reporters as to why they're going to stay quiet in free agency or go through mini-rebuilds in 2020-21. Unsurprisingly, teams don't want to run up huge bills for non-contending teams while still having to swallow drastic gate revenue losses.
That will limit the suitors in free agency to some degree, and critically, it threatens to take teams off of the market who have to overpay to lure players to small/non-glamor markets in the first place. That leaves the playoff teams and contending teams to compete for free agents. Most if not all of the teams in that top tier are already operating above the league's soft cap, leaving them with limited options to acquire guys outright in free agency. Big paydays could be in short supply.
So how does that help the Sixers? If you're Alec Burks and/or Glenn Robinson III, maybe you take a look at the market and see the big payday you want isn't out there, and that roles might be limited in other situations. You see that this offseason has to unfold quickly, and you see upside in standing pat.
There's money to be made by betting on yourself and rolling things over to the summer of 2021, when a lot of money will be available after teams strike out on all the big fish on the market then. When teams inevitably miss out on the big fish they're saving money for that summer, historically we have seen role players capitalize and get overpaid.
The Sixers are in a bad spot in many respects, but they are somewhat of a rarity — a high-profile team that is desperate for contributors to eat more minutes. Burks and Robinson III are the sort of veteran contributors with defined roles and skillsets that Rivers loves historically. Maybe the expedited offseason combined with that fact convinces them to stay on the cheap.
If so, the Sixers should be deeper and better to start the year than they were previously.
To be frank, this team probably isn't getting fixed in one offseason, let alone a disjointed one. They would need a small miracle, or at the very least a ton of assumed risk, to come out of this with a team worthy of contention. Daryl Morey or not, there are a lot of things they need to figure out.
If we assume player movement might be impeded this offseason, a quicker restart is actually a good thing for Philadelphia. The reported difference between a late December start and a mid-January start is roughly 22 games, per Marc Stein of the New York Times, and additional games will help provide clarity on what still needs to be fixed with this roster before the 2020-21 trade deadline arrives. Nothing will be definitive by then (and nothing ever really is in pro sports), but by then we'll see how much of a difference Doc Rivers has been able to make early, and how many of their problems can be solved with development and scheme vs. roster turnover and trades.
If you want to argue last season was enough evidence to work from, I won't debate you on that point, but with all of the new faces in the organization who have voiced their belief in the talent on hand, it's not crazy to think they want to see things firsthand before making any franchise-altering moves. A quicker restart helps achieve that goal.
Plus, from a viewer's perspective, at least they'll get to start putting this thing together in one form or another. It might be ugly, it might make you scream at the TV, but we'll all probably be stuck inside this winter, and hoops can't hurt. Chemistry and habits have to be built, and there's no better way to do that than to step on the court as soon as possible.
Plus, there are only so many times guys can name search themselves on Twitter and see a Trade Machine screenshot before losing it. These guys need this for their personal sanity (and their personal checking accounts), if nothing else.
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