[Dazzling Dunks and Basketball BloopersParticipant]

Lakers: The Lakers were rolling before the season shutdown in March. They had come off of two extremely impressive back to back victories over the Clippers and Bucks and appeared to be in prime position for a championship run. They seemed to have finally figured out their rotations and their chemistry was clicking. However, all that momentum goes out the window now. When the season resumes the Lakers will be without 2 key rotation pieces in Bradley and Rondo, and possibly Dwight Howard. They will be trying to integrate 2 strange and volatile personalities into their rotation in JR Smith and Dion Waiters, neither of which has played an actual NBA game in a while and both of whom are huge question marks. Plus the home court advantage they worked so hard to get basically goes out the window now. Make no mistake, this team still has 2 superstars, is almost sure to be the number one seed in the West, and still has the talent to win a title. However, there are an awful lot more question marks now than there were in March.

Jazz: There are some major question marks regarding the chemistry between their 2 best players. Mitchell and Gobert have clearly not been on good terms for a while and the COVID debacle seemed to bring everything to a head. Who knows what will happen when they get back to being in the same locker room. The loss of of Bogdanovic will hurt as well and will require some major roster adjustments. Mike Conley has been a massive disappointment so far but he will need to play like the player he was in Memphis if the Jazz want to have any shot at playoff run.

Thunder: OKC was arguably the league’s hottest and most surprising team when the Coronavirus hit. Now they are going to have to rekindle that chemistry after a four month layoff. While they didn’t sustain any major losses, it might not be so easy to just pick up where they left off.

Nets: In all honesty, the Nets were never going to be a threat this season and any hope that had at making noise in the playoffs went out the window when Kyrie went down for the year. As a result of COVID they will bring an extremely depleted roster to the bubble. About the best they can hope for at this point is to avoid any more injuries to any of their core players and to gain some chemistry to bring to next season.

[BKGingerSnapParticipant]

It will be fascinating to see how the disappearance of home court advantage will impact each aspect of an NBA game. Philly (29-2) and Milwaukee (28-3) had the best home records in the league. Milwaukee, like LA Lakers, were great on the road this season (25-9) where as Philly was dreadful (10-24). My guess would be is that no team will be more impacted than Philly losing the connection they have with the Philly fans when they play at home. Two other teams, Miami and Denver, I expect to be modestly negatively impacted. Miami had a great home record and now road teams won’t be distracted by being in South Beach. Denver also benefits from the altitude advantage at home so that advantage will be gone in Orlando.
On the benefit side, I am looking at New Orleans. They have an easy schedule. Zion looks like a demi-god. New Orleans has maybe the worst home court advantage of any team in the league. Gotta figure things are going to go well for New Orleans. Another team is Portland. Getting Nurkic and Collins back is huge for them as they finally have some useful big men to defend the paint instead of relying Hassan Whiteside.

[BothTeamsPlayedHard-Participant]

The Lakers are probably big winners. LeBron and Anthony Davis don’t live in homes where they haven’t touched a ball or been able to have something close to their normal workout in months. It is a huge advantage.

The Jazz will probably have to trade Gobert after the year. I get it. It seemed like a team built to last, but they probably get a good return for him. That won’t help in Orlando. What would help if Conley could pick up from where he was the final 10-15 games before the shutdown. He got off to a bad start, but it was coming back. For much the same reason I think the Lakers will benefit from LeBron and Davis having home gyms, I think Conley will be able to hit the ground running.

The Thunder will only be hurt if Chris Paul is too busy with his side gig as THE snitchline to play.

The Nets are only getting a taste of how Kyrie will ultimately destroy them. Sure, they weren’t going to compete, but it isn’t a good thing that they were the least interested team of the 22 to return.

[canadabasketballisrisingParticipant]

No way the Jazz trade Gobert unless he is not the player he was pre covid. Way too valuable anchoring your defense.

[RUDEBOY-Participant]

yeah if i had to choose between mitchell or gobert im rolling with gobert……that team will be lottery bound if they trade gobert…the only way i see them getting rid of him if all the reports r true that he has burned too many bridges within the organization and the relationship is beyond repair……

[sniperParticipant]

I think it’s crazy to try and predict what will happen in the bubble because so much depends on things we can’t see, like the mental/emotional state of the players, their physical conditioning (especially for guys recovering from Covid) and varying degrees of rust (that as stated above may have to do with which players have basketball courts and weight rooms in their homes and which do not).

That said, I would worry about teams with a lot of players who’ve never competed at the highest level before. If the veteran teams, the teams that are on a mission to win the whole thing, come out with playoff intensity from the start, the less experienced teams could get overwhelmed before they ever get their legs under them. A lot of the sub-.500 teams are just going to be punching bags. Among the better teams, I think Memphis, OKC, Dallas, Miami and Indiana could struggle.

[bt102Participant]

Those reports with Mitchell and Gobert were overreactions. if you paid attention at all recently, their relationship is fine. They’ve talked it out. Now as for trading Gobert with him and Utah, I don’t think they will. I think they will be fine. If the Jazz trade Gobert, no matter who they get back, I don’t think the impact will be the same. I did see a BR trade with Coby, Carter and a top 10 pick, and young, that I really liked for both sides tbh. But, either way, I don’t think it happens at all, and I think they will be fine.

[SwatLakeCityParticipant]

Yes, Utah is hurt by the shutdown but not because of the relationship between Gobert and Mitchell. Like bt102 said those reports are way overblown. Yes, Gobert made a mistake in acting the way he did before he contracted it, but honestly the way the Corona virus was sweeping through the world at that time it could have hit anybody. Gobert and Mitchell have since then talked it out and have cast all previous notions of hatred or animosity aside.
Now what will affect the Jazz the most is the loss of Bojan. He was their best stretch 4, scoring 20 some points per game and shooting +40% from 3! Now with him out the Jazz have to either start ONeal, and switch either him or Ingles to the 4, which is definitely not their position or start Niang at the 4. Niang is the best offensively compared to Oneal, but on the otherhand ONeal is the best defensively. However both are a severe drop off in offense compared to Bojan. Which means the points will have to come from elsewhere. Likely meaning that Conley will have to pick up where he left off the last 8 or 10 games before the shutdown and build off of his performance in the horse tourney select NBA players did during the shutdown. That must happen in order for the Jazz to have some chance at staying at 4th in the west or move up.

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