The 1996-97 NBA season shouldn’t feel like too long ago. The sitting United States president during that run will likely see his similarly-aged wife run for president in 2016, the internet was around, we’re not using flying cars currently, and the shape of the NBA land is more or less the same. Still, 18 years is a long time, and there are differences when it comes to how we cover and follow this league.
For one, the tanking debate is given full and throated edge from day to day on various websites, social media platforms, and radio chat shows. Within days of their 2014-15 debut, the Los Angeles Lakers were sussed out as potential tankers, and the Philadelphia 76ers’ interests are quite obvious. If a team decides to give up on a season or even a single game, the word is bleated out from glen to glen before the starting lineup introductions even finish.
Oklahoma City is currently working without Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook due to injury. Durant has a stress fracture in his right foot, and Westbrook is out with a broken right hand. Both injuries should keep the All-Stars off the court until mid-December, and both breaks also leave for the possibility of chronic re-injury. The Thunder are a game unit, but they’ve also lost five of seven to begin the season, which has some wondering if it might just be in everyone’s best interests to punt the season.
A lost year for the Thunder would be in Dallas owner Mark Cuban’s best interests as well, and prior to a Mavs contest against the Heat on Sunday, he mused aloud as to whether or not it might be a better move for the Thunder just to call it quits on 2014-15, as the San Antonio Spurs did in 1996 when David Robinson went down with a broken foot.
From Tim McMahon at ESPN Dallas:
"The question I don't think anybody has asked is, why don't they pull a David Robinson and try to get Tim Duncan?" Cuban said, speaking before the Mavericks hosted the Miami Heat.
[…]
"We already specialize in a race to the bottom," Cuban said. "More participants won't change anything. They're all high-profile participants."
[…]
"I'm not suggesting anything," Cuban said. "I'm just curious why the question hasn't been asked because I'm curious what the answer is."
I’m not saying … I’m just saying.
The similarities are striking. Though many have retroactively chided the Spurs for sitting Robinson in the year that San Antonio chalked up enough losses to “earn” the rights to Tim Duncan, his broken foot was genuinely a rather scary thing that should have forced him out for the bulk of the 1996-97 campaign. Even if the NBA lottery weren’t an institution, there was absolutely no reason for the Spurs to bring back their 7-2 franchise center to lope about on his recovering foot just to save face late in March for a team that wasn’t going to make the playoffs.
Yes, the potential promise of Tim Duncan helped. Yes, all those lost games pushed the Spurs closer to the top pick in the draft. Yes, it was probably the right move considering that, lo these many years later, the Spurs are still in championship contention because David Robinson sat out all those games. And, yes, the looming presence of the draft lottery no doubt influenced the Spurs to rest Robinson over the last few weeks of that season.
Robinson needed that rest, though. His was a dangerous injury, and that time off likely had a huge hand in him playing sound, healthy basketball for the final six seasons of his Hall of Fame career.
Sean Elliott also missed more than half of that season with a knee injury, and he wasn’t truly himself until two years later. Russell Westbrook is far younger than Elliott was at that point in Sean’s career, and his hand injury is a fluke thing as opposed to a chronic malady. Still, there are parallels.
The Thunder would be best served to take the lengthy, safe route with Durant’s broken foot – his game and workload is like anyone else’s in NBA history. For them to write off the entire season, though, would be a bit of a miss. Times have changed.
Not only would the Thunder have to work through month after month of taking in criticism for pushing 2014-15 off to the side, they’d be imperiling one of their last two guaranteed years with Mr. Durant still on the team’s roster. Kevin is a free agent in 2016, several teams will gun for his services, and he’s no guarantee to return to an OKC team that has yet to win an NBA title.
Less importantly just as profoundly, there is no Tim Duncan waiting at the end of the 2015 NBA draft rainbow. This has less to do with the draft class in June as it does the era – Duncan was a four-year player at Wake Forest who was ready to contribute at an All-Star NBA level right away. Even the liveliest of prospects won’t be able to contribute as much next season. If the Thunder did tank and take in the top overall pick in next year’s draft, that selection wouldn’t be doing a whole hell of a lot for 27-year old Kevin Durant next season.
The Thunder has at least another month to work through a Durant and Westbrook-less existence. From there, they will have their work cut out for them to make the playoffs in a Western Conference that may demand 50 wins to secure an eighth seed. This will not be an easy season. Westbrook’s injury is to his shooting hand, and he’s undergone three knee surgeries since the spring of 2013. Durant’s stress fracture will always worry us. What once was looked at as the NBA’s Next Big Thing could flame out without winning a damn thing.
Taking a season off won’t help, though. Mark Cuban, as catty and intelligent as they come, no doubt understands as much. He just wants one more team out of that playoff bracket.
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from Yahoo Sports http://ift.tt/1oDEm40
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