Why the 2020 NBA champion can’t have an asterisk just yet

As different as the finish to this NBA season will be, an asterisk is only relevant if the landscape of the playoff picture is significantly altered.

It’s a topic of conversation that’s raged on since the NBA elected to resume the halted 2019-20 season at the Disney World Resort down in Orlando, Florida: Do the circumstances surrounding this unprecedented finish manifest an asterisk next to the winner of this year’s Larry O’Brien trophy?

Both players and coaches don’t seem to think so. Quite the opposite, in fact. From Austin Rivers and Giannis Antetokounmpo to Frank Vogel and Mike Malone, some believe the uncharted waters each of the 22 invited teams will have to navigate will make the 2020 title far more difficult to win than its predecessors.

Much of the NBA’s fanbase is of the opposing belief. They see the number of players who have already opted out and predict those who will be forced into quarantine at the worst possible moment.

There’s no denying the potential impact the coronavirus can have on the postseason landscape. Keyword being potential. Because as of right now, despite several notable names dropping out, the playoff picture remains enough intact to produce the level of competition we’ve grown accustomed to.

An asterisk is meant to acknowledge what is deemed a unique and therefore unfair advantage one team had over all the others en route to the championship.

Ones associated with a lockout-shortened season haven’t held much weight because all 30 teams occupy that same boat. Think the 2015 Golden State Warriors or 2019 Toronto Raptors, two teams whose path to the championship was cleared, if only slight, due to injuries suffered by the opposing team.

This isn’t to say either was undeserving of the title. Why should two prime contenders be penalized for that which is out of their control? But, for people who subscribe to such a tactic, an asterisk acknowledges the aid afforded to a team by chance.

Those asterisks were only put on the table after the fact, not before it. That’s how they work. They come into play following the imbalance in fairness among postseason participants, where one team’s path suddenly becomes less arduous than another.

Contrary to popular belief, the NBA’s bubble plan doesn’t create that imbalance. Yes, players will be forced to produce under unique conditions following the months-long hiatus they were forced into only to immediately jump into the demands of playoff basketball.

If those conditions reign true for some, they do for all. Better-conditioned athletes might be more equipped to handle it, but the same could be said of your standard postseason bracket.

Assume the Milwaukee Bucks and Toronto Raptors meet in the Eastern Conference Finals. A mandatory quarantine by Giannis Antetokounmpo midway through paves the way for Toronto to return to the Finals. That is an advantage only a slim number of team benefits from, thus creating an unfair edge that opens the door for the asterisk discussion.

As likely as similar scenarios are to transpire, hypotheticals carry little weight in any argument, much less when assessing the validity of the 2019-20 season.

This isn’t to suggest the optimistic possibility of not a single coronavirus case making its way into the bubble or onto any significant member of a playoff team. But how about we wait in determining the worth of this season until we have a full body of work to go off of?

It’s a level of patience many preach around other NBA debates. Perhaps doing so in this instance would weed out a lot of the unnecessary energy people are using for an argument that lacks any evidence to support it just yet.