Doug Sears, Jr. Culture, Opinion

Opinion: A contingency champion is still a champion

Seats at American Airline Arena stand empty after a Miami Heat basketball game in 2018. This scene could play itself out again across the NBA but with players on the court and a championship on the line, if and when the NBA returns this season amid concerns over COVID-19.

In this Corner

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Unsubstantiated theories have swirled around the NBA and NHL in the past weeks about how to resolve the suspended seasons in a way that is safe and responsible and true to each league’s history. NHL fans are hoping to avoid a third cancelled Stanley Cup after the 1919 and 2006 seasons ended without a victor. 

The sites and formats have been malleable but the general idea seems to be the same. Find a location with enough rinks or courts nearby, a good amount of hotel rooms, bring in players, coaches, trainers and refs and televise games in front of empty seats. Keith Smith of Yahoo sports pointed out that Walt Disney World in Orlando had the hotel rooms, court access and even governmental backing to pull it off, referencing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s recent decision to declare the WWE as an essential service. The controversial decision could easily be applied to the NBA as well. Similar plans for the NHL have pinpointed North Dakota and New Hampshire as possible locations. 

Ideas such as these, abrupt and without precedent, are always the source of serious debate among sports fans. The most important debate, of course, is whether such a contingency plan is safe, whether the risk is worth it. But that debate is no fun, so we’ll skip it for now.

The fact that both Bonds and McGwire depended on chemists and cheating doesn’t change where those baseballs landed, to me. I still believe Lance Armstrong is a 7-time Tour de France champion and Reggie Bush led his team to a National Title while claiming the Heisman for himself. I don’t believe in asterisks; I believe in scoreboards. You can’t change the past, and you can’t change the context. 

Doug Sears, Jr, In this Corner

The next debate is whether an abbreviated, truncated, neutral site championship tournament is a legitimate championship, and whether it would properly honor the sport. LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers went on record before the season was suspended indicating he was not interested in playing without fans. A contingency plan would create an interesting conundrum for James, who at 35 may be on one of his last real chances at a championship. LeBron’s Lakers held the best record in the Western Conference when the NBA’s suspension was announced. 

LeBron is also no stranger to asterisks on his championships, as the decision to form a “Super Team” in Miami, where he won two titles with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, was largely criticized by fans, media and peers, even though some of those peers went on to do the same thing. 

But the question lingers. Is the Corona Champion legitimate? Will the Tampa Bay Lightning still be a Stanley Cup Champion if they hoist the Cup in a 5,000-seat college arena, skating past empty seats while the Red Hot Chili Peppers are played extra loud to drown out the crickets? Would Kevin Garnett’s legendary declaration of “Anything is possible!” have rung out to the heavens the same way without a cheering crowd behind him? If Bill Russell was at home for his own safety instead of standing in the confetti shower with Garnett? 

Maybe not. But the soul of the game is the playing of the game. Even without fans, the game is worth playing. Sports have always been defined by the adaptability and creativity of the all-time greats. Whether it was a man wearing a parachute interrupting a heavyweight boxing match, or Drew Bledsoe getting injured in Week 2 of the 2001 season, the best stories in sports often come from an unexpected starting point, and from people who suffered a setback and worked around it instead of surrendering to it. 

I’m also a big believer in “what happened, happened.” Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs one season. I saw it happen, just a few years after Mark McGwire surpassed Roger Maris. The fact that both Bonds and McGwire depended on chemists and cheating doesn’t change where those baseballs landed, to me. I still believe Lance Armstrong is a 7-time Tour de France champion and Reggie Bush led his team to a National Title while claiming the Heisman for himself. I don’t believe in asterisks; I believe in scoreboards. You can’t change the past, and you can’t change the context. 

President Abraham Lincoln, in a quote that is probably apocryphal, once said (or maybe didn’t say) “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” President Lincoln, or whoever made up this quote and tried to put some of Honest Abe’s shine on it, understood that if you wait for the perfect solution to come along, you’ll be waiting too long. 

If the curve is sufficiently flattened, the NBA and NHL should find a neutral site, buy up the hotels and start playing the games. It will be unusual, and it will be weird, and it will be uncomfortable.

But it was probably weird and uncomfortable when Drew Bledsoe walked back into the New England locker room and was handed a clipboard instead of his helmet. The games march on. If we really need help getting ourselves in the mode, we’ll take a lesson from Liberty University and adopt their “Silent Night” game tradition.

We’ll just have to wait a little bit longer to finally explode in applause and cheers. 

Doug Sears, Jr. is a writer, columnist, and podcaster for Watershed Voice.