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Chris Szagola / Associated Press
Nothing about the four-month wait for the NBA’s return has been fun.
But while luckily it’s behind us, its impact may resonate for the rest of the 2019-2020 season.
This campaign is as unique as any in the history of this sport and it is impossible to know for certain the impact of such a long break launched in the middle of the marathon. That said, there are bread crumbs that we can follow to identify which teams will benefit the most from leisure.
From injury recoveries to recharged batteries, we’ll look at the five clubs that should have been making the most of the past four months.
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Charles Krupa / Associated Press
The Celtics don’t have the deepest bench or the strongest rotation in the center, so they have to squeeze everything they can from their key contributors (the top five and Marcus Smart).
This is why this four-month break is positive for the collective, even if it has interrupted a nuclear race by Jayson Tatum (29.5 points on 48.3 / 46.6 / 74.7 by shooting on his last 15 releases). The most important development was giving Kemba Walker time to rest his left knee.
He lost six of the team’s 10 games after breaking the All-Star with knee pain and shot an abysmal 30.5 percent of the four he played. He hasn’t gone back to where he needs to be (he’s been kept out of Friday’s scrum), but if he can fully relax before the post-season, he could be the key to Boston becoming a real contender, like NBC Sports Boston A. Sherrod Blakely noted:
“While the Celtics have shown no sign of serious concern for Walker’s health, it is undoubtedly the biggest uncertainty with this team at the moment. Walker is more than just a key player; he is a difference maker whose status could very well to mean the difference between a deep playoff or a quick and disappointing end of the season. “
Despite having more stars on the roster, the Celtics still manage to make the whole thing better than the sum of their parts. They are the only team from the East with the first five degrees of efficiency in attack and defense, which highlights how they can climb. But they need Walker to help guide the prosecution.
As dominant as Tatum, he’s still only a 22-year-old who averaged 15.2 points in last year’s playoffs. Jaylen Brown and Gordon Hayward can also help drive the offense jerky, but they aren’t constantly amazed at the volume. Everything works in tandem, and filming and creating Walker’s shots are key parts of the recipe.
If it ends healthy after all this, the restart will be worth the wait for the Shamrocks.
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Michael Wyke / Associated Press
Although this is the first season of James Harden and Russell Westbrook together with Space City, it already has a state of the art atmosphere.
The two former MVPs are both on the wrong side of 30, as are key racing buddies PJ Tucker and Eric Gordon. Head coach Mike D’Antoni is in the final season of his contract and you wonder if Houston’s small-ball all-in move was an attempt to prepare the skipper for a final crack in finding the championship formula.
Here’s where this break can help. The Rockets looked wobbly before they started – losing four in a row in March, including games against Knicks, Hornets and Magic – and wondered if they had been gassed. Harden was claiming the 10th highest utilization rate in NBA history and Westbrook ranked 34th on that list. Tucker addressed the night wear of 7-foot battles as a 6’5 “starting center.
Houston, however, did not simply rest during the break. Harden has moved his overdrive workouts, sporting a leaner physique that could increase his stamina for the second season. Westbrook, who apparently spent his entire life in the form of a game, rummaged through training exercises that seem only exhausting. Clearly, rockets are planning something important.
“Now, Houston becomes even more frightening,” Dwyane Wade told The Athletic’s Kelly Iko. “With both of these guys, they can run out to the gym.”
The Rockets may be very heavy, but their one-on-two punch has the same knockout power as any other. If their stars are turbocharged for this final sprint and their supporting cast follows their lead – Houston gets really interesting if Gordon has found his legs in the past four months – the Rockets could be a nightmare matchup for anyone.
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Kelvin Kuo / Associated Press
LeBron James and Anthony Davis aren’t actually basketball cyborgs, they only play the TV part. But Hollywood stars need respirators like everyone else and are hitting Orlando with fully charged batteries.
It’s a terrifying thought for the other 21 bubble occupants.
The last time the Lakers had a mini reset, they left the All-Star range with a 7-2 record that featured the Boston Celtics, Philadelphia 76ers, Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Clippers takedowns. James averages 30.0 absurd points (with a click of 55.1 percent!), 9.4 assists and 8.2 rebounds on that leg, while Davis provided 26.9 points, 10.2 cards and 2.8 blocks.
Allowing them to reload their stamina for a championship push could be a real life cheat code.
“I think ours [championship] the odds are greater because we’re all rested, “said Davis, according to Lakers.com’s Mike Trudell.” We are all ready to go. If anything, our chances have increased and it will be who wants it most. Everyone has had a decompression of the season … it’s about which team wants it most and which team can stay healthy. “
The extra time may also have given coach Frank Vogel the opportunity to invent ways to get Kyle Kuzma to go.
Despite everything that has gone right into Lakers Land this season, the third year forward has shot its least productive campaign to date. He is not the cleanest buddy with James and Davis as the dominating ball marker, but Kuzma’s offensive versatility could perhaps reduce the collapses that occur when James sits down (11.7 worst points per 100 possessions without him).
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Matt Slocum / Associated Press
After spending the first five months of the season searching for answers they never found, the Sixers needed to free their headspace. They also needed time for Joel Embiid (shoulder) and Ben Simmons (back) to keep their annoying wounds under control, and for coach Brett Brown to come up with ways to put together this talented but imperfect list.
A four month rest could be just what this group needed to unlock its massive potential.
Brown mixed his hand from the break, with Simmons sliding towards the point forward, Shake Milton joins the starting lineup and Al Horford is back on the bench. If Milton shows that his end-of-season wave was more than a mirage (19.4 points on shot 58.8 / 60.5 / 72.2), it could be the missing ingredient that corrects Philly’s imbalance (18 ° in attack, 6 ° in defense).
Milton wallowed in 44.2 percent of his three catch-and-shoot games, which highlights the chaos he can cause by playing Embiid’s post-ups. The big boy is working on reading double teams and Milton’s shot is a way to arm that job. Milton’s grips and pull-up footage could also turn Simmons into a fascinating (and devastating) screener, since it can explode on the edge or spread on the short roll.
“I love playing in that pick-and-roll situation, or pick-and-pop, whatever it is,” Simmons told Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer. “It offers us so many different options. It is difficult to protect.”
Philly has even more levels that he can unlock. Simmons may finally be willing to let it fly (perhaps for real this time). Deadline acquisitions Glenn Robinson III and Alec Burks could find their way to more comfortable roles. Having Horford in the second unit could give the Sixers a central advantage throughout the game.
All this must come together and the fact that so far it has not been able to mean that it will never do so. But the Sixers have the same talent as anyone else and this break may have helped all the pieces of the puzzle to settle down.
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Brandon Dill / Associated Press
Of all the teams that entered the bubble outside the playoff, none were more shocked by their Portland position. This was a 53-game Western Conference finalist just last season, and was now getting even more from Damian Lillard (deserving of MVP ratings) and CJ McCollum.
But the injury bug hit the Blazers and their defense ran out (27th in efficiency, down from 16th last season). It’s hard to say what will happen on the defensive front – Maurice Harkless and Al-Farouq Aminu’s out-of-season departures are looming there – but at least the health department is finally providing good news. Both Jusuf Nurkic and Zach Collins filled the starting spots during Thursday’s scrum with the Indiana Pacers.
Nurkic, who hadn’t played all season after a leg fracture in March 2019, had already returned to his own bruise. He only had 20 minutes to punish the Pacers with 14 points, eight aces and one block. Collins, who played three games before having shoulder surgery, added six more points, four aces and a block in 19 minutes of work.
“I think everyone who was anxious to see Zach and Nurk was probably happy to see how they played,” said Blazer coach Terry Stotts, according to Jason Quick of The Athletic.
With Nurkic and Collins back in action, Blazers could be a problem. Lillard has been on a short list of the most productive players this season – the third player has always scored an average of 28 points, seven assists and three triples – and the supporting cast boasts flammable markers at each point. If the defense can simply become mediocre, this club could stay with anyone.
All statistics have been kindly provided by NBA.com and Basketball Reference unless otherwise indicated.
Zach Buckley covers the NBA for the Bleacher report. Follow him on Twitter, @ZachBuckleyNBA.
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