Speaking of the abbreviated basketball season, what effect do you think a December start could have on the regular season play and the playoff picture? Will top players play harder before the post-season? Will coaches treat aching players more gingerly since they won't have as much time to recover from potential injury?
I guess I kind of answered this in the previous post regarding the Celtics but will talk more generally here.
I think the shortened season will have a generally negative effect on the regular season in terms of level of play with some exceptions. Teams like the Celtics that are in all likelihood going to make the playoffs comfortably, have played with each other for a long time, and are somewhat older are almost certainly going to play a less intense brand of basketball during the regular season than they would during a normal season. (See what I said about the condensed scheduling in the previous post.) There will definitely be a lot of guys sitting out with 'sore backs' and other vague ailments that cannot be proven or disproved at the end of long road trips and back-to-backs.
The marquee games will still be entertaining but in general I think we're going to see an even greater reduction in effort at the top than normal. However, there are some teams that have a lot to prove and need to develop chemistry on the fly after a non-existent training camp and the addition of new personnel. The Clippers are an obvious example. For the first time in the history of that franchise they have the opportunity to be the biggest draw in L.A.. They cannot afford to mortgage that chance for rested legs, especially since they are such a young team. They need to play hard every night and their many bandwagon-jumping fans will demand to see Paul and Griffin for big minutes in every game. It's not often that the little brother has the chance to usurp big brother's status but this is one.
Through these first few weeks you're also going to find out who actually worked out during the extended off season and who sat around eating Ho-Ho's. When guys start dropping like flies due to overuse/impact injuries you'll know who slept in and skipped those couple of extra days at the gym. This attrition might have a larger than expected impact on the season going forward. I'd be willing to bet that at least one contending team will be ravaged by injuries brought on by their players being out of shape or wearing down faster than usual.
As for the playoffs I think you'll see a shuffling of the usual order in terms of seeding to some degree. Teams like the Celtics will not be able to go all out every night to try to get one of the top seeds in the East, nor do they need to. I think this will lead to a lot of early round 'upsets' (in seed only, not who's actually better) as good teams try to ease into the season and enter the playoffs healthy while mediocre teams go for it from the start and end up with a seed that does not reflect their actual quality. With some exceptions I see this balancing out once the post-season starts. As is normally the case, effort will go up and the better teams will emerge, even if they had unimpressive regular seasons.
In my opinion this season, for all its uniqueness and differences will look much like other seasons in retrospect. Teams will give half-hearted efforts during the first three quarters of games and then turn it on in the fourth. Older teams will get banged up and have to rest guys to make playoff runs. Young teams will run some teams into the ground during the regular season but crash and burn when the grind-it-out playoffs start and people start trying on defense.
It's still the NBA after all...
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