What to watch for this NBA season
KD in Brooklyn, rising Canadians and a new MVP favourite are in the mix
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Here's what you need to know right now from the world of sports:
The NBA season tips off tonight
The shortest off-season ever is over and the 2020-21 season opens with an interesting double-header. At 7 p.m. ET, Kevin Durant finally plays his first meaningful game for the Brooklyn Nets when they host his old team, the Golden State Warriors. At 10 p.m. ET, the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers take on the intra-arena rival Clippers. The Toronto Raptors open tomorrow night at "home" in Tampa vs. New Orleans.
Quick refresher on the framework of this quirky season: Due to the pandemic and the delayed 2020 playoffs stretching into October, the schedule has been cut from 82 games to 72 for each team. It ends May 16, followed by a quick play-in competition to decide the final two playoff spots in each conference. The standard 16-team playoff tournament begins May 22 and the Finals will wrap up by July 22 — one day before the Tokyo Olympics open. There's no bubble this time. With the exception of the Raptors, who are playing out of Tampa because of border restrictions, games are happening in teams' home arenas.
To get you primed for the season, here are some of the big storylines:
The Lakers are still the team to beat.
When you've got arguably the two best players in the league, you've got it made. In their first season together, LeBron James and Anthony Davis cruise-controlled to the third-best regular-season record and then flattened everyone in the playoffs, going 16-5 en route to winning the Larry O'Brien Trophy.
Their supporting cast might be even better this season after L.A. poached Sixth Man of the Year Montrezl Harrell from the Clippers, signed old-but-still-useful centre Marc Gasol away from the Raptors and added solid point guard Dennis Schröder in a trade with Oklahoma City. Dwight Howard, Rajon Rondo and Danny Green are gone, but no one's losing sleep over them. The betting markets have the Lakers as clear favourites to repeat as champs.
Brooklyn could win the title. Or go down in flames.
The Nets are neck-and-neck with the Bucks as favourites to win the weaker Eastern Conference, but their range of outcomes is wild. That's what happens when you build a team around two players as talented and emotionally mercurial as Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving — and are considering trading for another potentially difficult superstar in James Harden.
With or without Harden, it'll be Canadian legend Steve Nash's job to keep everyone happy — a tall order for someone who's never been a head coach before at any level. Nash's fortunes will hinge on Durant, who's finally ready to play his first regular-season game for Brooklyn almost a year and a half after signing with them. If he's all the way back from the torn Achilles he suffered in the 2019 Finals with Golden State, that's enough to make the Nets a contender in the East.
Harden is the elephant in the room.
NBA fans are excited to watch games again, but probably even more excited to find out where the three-time reigning scoring champion ends up. He wants out of Houston and would prefer to join his friends Durant and Irving on the Nets, but the Rockets are looking for the best deal.
Potential trade partners include Philadelphia (for Ben Simmons), Miami (Tyler Herro as the centrepiece) and maybe even the superstar-hungry Raptors. Wherever Harden ends up, it'll shift the championship odds right away.
A new MVP should be crowned.
No one has won three in a row since Larry Bird from 1984-86, so there's a good chance Giannis Antetokounmpo's reign will end. The betting favourite to succeed him is third-year Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Doncic. The Slovenian triple-double machine is coming off a dynamite season in which he finished sixth in scoring with 28.8 points per game, averaged 9.4 rebounds and 8.8 assists and looked unstoppable in the playoffs.
Dallas had the top-rated offence in the league last season and Doncic has the young legs to put up big numbers every night. All the ingredients are there for the 21-year-old to become the youngest MVP in NBA history.
It could be another big year for Canadians.
There are more good players from this country in the NBA than ever before. Two in particular to keep an eye on this season are guards Jamal Murray and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Murray, 23, is coming off an epic playoff run for Denver that saw him drop 50, 42 and 50 points on Utah in consecutive games in the first round, then 26, 21 and 40 to help the Nuggets rally from 3-1 down to shock the heavily favoured Clippers. He also averaged 25 points in Denver's five-game defeat to the Lakers in the Western final. We're about to find out whether that was just a hot streak or Murray has made the leap to true stardom.
Gilgeous-Alexander, 22, led Oklahoma City in scoring last year with 19 points per game and helped the Thunder to a surprising playoff berth. The keys to the team should be his this season after OKC re-committed to its rebuilding plan by trading away veteran guards Chris Paul and Dennis Schröder. Fellow Canadian Lu Dort, an Oklahoma City fan favourite as an undrafted rookie last season, could have a bigger role too.
If things break right for the Canadian men's national team, SGA and Murray will form the starting backcourt for the team's last-chance Olympic qualifier in Victoria starting June 29 — and for the Tokyo Olympics a few weeks after that.
The Raptors are still good.
Last off-season they lost Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard and still won their third straight division title, actually posting a better regular-season winning percentage than they did with Kawhi. This year, Toronto lost important big men Serge Ibaka and Marc Gasol, and Kyle Lowry's looming free agency will hang over this season unless he re-signs.
But the Raptors still have an excellent core with Lowry and the re-signed Fred VanVleet anchoring the backcourt and Pascal Siakam and the suddenly mega-rich OG Anunoby up front. The supporting cast is strong with holdover Norman Powell and first-round draft pick Malachi Flynn at guard, new centre Aron Baynes and Canadian forward Chris Boucher.
This probably isn't a championship-calibre team, and the search is on for a true superstar — either via trade or free agency this summer. But this group of players always seems to overachieve, and you know they'll give a strong effort every night. So expect another good season from them, even if their ceiling may not be high enough. Read more about the outlook for the "Tampa" Raptors in this piece by CBC Sports' Myles Dichter.
WATCH | 3 things you should know about the Raptors:
Quickly ...
NHL teams are putting ads on their helmets. The Washington Capitals and New Jersey Devils both announced today that their buckets will be adorned with the logo of a large financial-services company (it's a different sponsor for each team). No one else has officially followed suit yet. But, given the amount of revenue lost during the pandemic, it's surely only a matter of time.
The National Women's Hockey League landed a historic TV deal. Women's professional hockey will be televised live by a widely distributed, major U.S. cable channel for the first time ever when the NBC Sports Network shows the Isobel Cup semifinals on Feb. 4 and the championship final on Feb. 5. Those games are the culmination of a short season and playoff tournament that will be played in a quarantined bubble in Lake Placid, N.Y., starting Jan. 23. Part of the six-team league's pitch to NBC was that the games are taking place at the arena where the U.S. men's team pulled off the Miracle on Ice in 1980. A Toronto expansion team is joining the NWHL this season, but it's unclear whether a Canadian network will show games. Read more about the NWHL and its deal with NBC here.
And sadly...
Kevin Greene died. In NFL history, only Bruce Smith and Reggie White have more sacks than Greene's 160. Fans of the '80s and '90s NFL will remember him for his long blond hair, muscular physique, relentless energy and charisma — all of which helped him make a few cameos on WCW wrestling shows. Greene played 15 NFL seasons for the Los Angeles Rams (1985-1992), Pittsburgh ('93-95), Carolina ('96, '98-99) and San Francisco ('97) and recorded double-digit sacks in 10 of his last 12 years. He was a two-time All-Pro and joined the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016. "I wasn't the biggest [and] I wasn't fastest,'' Greene once said. "But as long as you have a motor, you have heart... that will overcome any physical limitations.'' The cause of Greene's death hasn't been disclosed. He was only 58.
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