Scottie Pippen Does Not View NBA Bubble as NBA Basketball
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Amidst everything happening in the world, the return of the NBA was the last thing on everyone’s mind. With that being said, Adam Silver found a way to bring some degree of entertainment into what seemed like a chaotic world.
The NBA came back at full speed on July 30 and many were asking how it would even work with COVID spreading faster than a TV sellout on boxing day morning.
The bubble took place in Disney World with 22 teams playing for seeding. The NBA was essentially quarantining itself from the rest of society with players being tested every day and monitored for symptoms.
With the restart of the NBA players were given somewhat of a choice if they wanted to play in the bubble or not, and teams that had players who wanted an “out” of their roster could choose a player signed to an NBA or G league contract this season, which changes the perspective of who the teams were going to be able to bring to Orlando instead of just a two-way player. Guys like J. Crawford, Joe Johnson and J.R. Smith, who were all season without being signed to a team suddenly had all eyes on them. This, however, raises some questions.
Many are wondering if the playoffs this year are even meaningful, and the answer is: it’s complicated.
With the Lakers winning their 17th title with J.R.Smith who never even played a minute on the court through the return of the bubble, you start to ask yourself and wonder if this championship even meant anything. On top of this, rookies and veterans do not have to deal with crowd booing or rookies being nervous from playing on another teams house. As Scottie Pippen stated, the NBA now is looking like a “pickup” game. It does not have the same playoff feel it once had.
"Well, I’m going to be honest. It’s not NBA basketball," he said. "It’s not the hard grind. It’s not the travel. It’s not the fans. It’s not the distractions. Really, to me, it’s pickup basketball. It’s going to the gym. Yeah, you already got your team. Y’all practicing together. But it’s a more of a pickup type of basketball game, because there’s no fans in the stands. So there is no distraction. There’s no real noise. There’s no pressure on the players, you know. Prime example: I looked at (the Los Angeles Lakers' Rajon) Rondo. Rondo ain’t made 3-pointers in his whole NBA career. Now, all of a sudden, he’s in a bubble, he’s probably a 50% 3-point shooter. I haven’t even checked the stats, but that’s just something that I consider making the game so easy, because Rondo can’t score inside of an arena, when you got depth perception. Like, there’s a whole lot of things that make the NBA hard. The bubble makes the NBA easy to me.”
On the other hand, to say a Lakers win is meaningless also makes no sense since every player is in the same environment right now, so the factors that could be aiding Rondo are also aiding every other player. This just gives the Lakers more props in winning the title since every team they played against had players in top shape who were ready to play.
