| In today’s FOX Sports Insider: While there’s no question the NBA and other leagues’ postseasons will be different, they certainly don’t deserve an asterisk … As various leagues across America’s sportscape get their heads around an impending potential restart, it feels like there’s still not a lot you can do as a fan to hurry up the process. You’d be right in that sense — but there are some things you can do to make sure that the return isn’t as weird, awkward or unsatisfying as it might be. To start, here’s one that involves nothing more than shearing a simple punctuation mark from your mindset: Let’s agree to ban all use of the asterisk in conjunction with the upcoming conclusion to the NBA, NHL and MLS seasons, and to what will hopefully be a meaningful Major League Baseball schedule. Let’s forbid its use from anything connected with the National Football League slate, due to get underway in September. Let’s not just keep asterisks for this time period from entering the record books — which likely would never happen anyway, as the leagues have too much sense than to cheapen a product they worked so hard to get back underway — but let’s strip it from our chatter, too. |
You already know there will be some who will deride the outcome of 2020’s athletic achievements as less than authentic. They will claim that the conclusion to the NBA, after a lengthy pause necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, produced a result manifestly different than if the season had been allowed to play out. They will state that the new champion, whoever it is, will be somehow less worthy than all the past victors we have seen, having merely capitalized on the peculiar circumstances. You’ll hear that the difficulties posed by the lockdown caused an uneven playing field. That different levels of restriction hampered some teams and helped others. You’ll hear that some teams get more of an advantage from having their raucous home fans in the building than others and were affected more starkly by their absence. Certain players will benefit more greatly from having been able to rest and recuperate.  I get it. It will be different when things come back, but it’s just that — different. Not worse. Not tainted. Different. The hunt for the title doesn’t become a lottery. If anything, it should be held up as a special kind of triumph. Sports is a reflector of life in so many ways. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that mental resilience and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances are characteristics to be celebrated. The asterisk in grammar is an annotation. In sports, it is a slur. It implies something less worthy, or dubious. There have occasionally been times when that was called for; often, it is utterly unfair. Roger Maris deserved better. Whoever shines once we get sports back will be the same. Likely victims of COVID-shaming in sports fall into two groups. They are: athletes or teams who are frequent targets for criticism, or teams that happen to win as underdogs. Top of the list is LeBron James. If the Los Angeles Lakers emerge atop the current campaign, you can be certain there will be many who will wish to add a caveat to James’ fourth title, especially as it would push him to within two of Michael Jordan’s career tally. “The Last Dance” documentary has created a fresh wave of discussion about who is the finest basketball player in history, and the Jordan supporters are in feisty mood. “I’ve noticed this, post-Jordan documentary,” FOX Sports’ Nick Wright said on First Things First. “Folks, like me, that believe LeBron’s the greatest player ever … no one ever says Jordan’s anything worse than second. But the Jordan folks (are) out here saying, ‘LeBron’s lucky if he’s top 10; Ray Allen and Kyrie (Irving) had to save him.” Whatever camp you fall into on that debate, the worthiness of this season simply shouldn’t come into it. Whoever wins will have had to perform at a level over and above every other team, which is the simple criteria for anointing a champion. They will have had to deal with the shutdown and keep their team chemistry together through it. They will have had to have enough players keep themselves in optimum shape. Team leaders will have had to show their mettle. The group will have had to deal with the unique circumstances of possible quarantine during games, and also playing without fans. It is extra laudable in some ways. The others to suffer would be if an unheralded team were to win it all. If Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs win the Super Bowl again after a season that takes place with a different look, no one is going to say it’s not justified. If the Boston Bruins surge to the Stanley Cup by sweeping through an expanded playoffs after having racked up 100 points by the closure, will anyone claim they don’t deserve it? But if the Denver Nuggets or the Miami Heat find a spectacular run of form and go all the way in the NBA playoffs, there will be plenty wanting to say it shouldn’t count as much as a “proper” triumph. It’s nonsense. It is unfair thinking that shows a lack of understanding about what sports are really about. If ever there is time for positivity and a celebration of sports, it is now. When the time comes for sports to hit top gear once more, put away the sudoku and the power drill and whatever else you’ve been doing to pass the time. And put away the asterisk too, be it metaphorical or real, and get ready to give credit where it will be definitively due. Here’s what others have said… Shaquille O’Neal (via USA Today): “Any team that wins this year, there’s an asterisk. They’re not going to get the respect. What if a team that’s not really in the mix of things all of a sudden wins with a new playoff format? Nobody is going to respect that. So, scrap it. Worry about the safety of the fans and the people. Come back next year. Look, I understand how players are feeling. I really do. But any team that gets it done this year, there’s going to be an asterisk on that championship.” Arash Markazi, Los Angeles Times: “Would a championship this season be different? Yes. Unique? No doubt. Tainted? Not at all. If anything, a team such as the Lakers, which played 80% of the regular season and earned home-court advantage through the conference finals, would not get the benefits they earned as a top seed. Instead of playing in front of their home fans at Staples Center and forcing teams to travel to them, all the teams would be on an even playing field, from the basketball court to their hotel accommodations. But if the season does resume and the Lakers somehow find a way to win a championship after everything they have gone through, [Shaq and others] might be on to something with his asterisk idea. There should be some kind of symbol attached to note the most challenging, improbable and surreal journey any team has endured on its way to a title.” Sean Deveney, Forbes: “There will be no best-of-five early-round series. If a lower seed is to upset a favorite, it will need to win four games. That’s the only way to give whichever team is left standing out of this mess of a season the sheen of legitimacy. ‘No asterisks,’ is how one league executive put it to me. ‘That’s the message they’ve put out consistently. If you’re going to play it, you have to get to the end of that postseason, you’re going to have to get to the NBA Finals and have the feeling that the best team is there, that it was a fair and competitive and complete postseason and that it wasn’t something the league strung together to make a buck. That’s going to be the hard thing. It’s going to take longer and it is going to be a stress on the players but if fans don’t look at the playoffs and think they’re legit, it’s better not to play it at all.’” |
