You know, it's one thing to say.

So how about starting next season on December 22nd?

It's another thing to actually make that work.

And with this Friday is the deadline for the league and union to come to an agreement on so much of this.

The next three days are going to be full of ups and downs, loop the loops and all the rest.

Like, how's this for twist?

Yesterday, we got Danny Green on the ringer MBA show, proclaiming that if the league really does start next season 10 weeks after the MBA finals, he doesn't expect LeBron James or several of the other Lakers vets to show up for the first month.

I totally get where Danny is coming from.

On this.

I also have to say, if the MBA is handing out championship brings the night of December 22nd, I would expect LeBron James will not only be accepting his ring, but we'll be playing in that game.

And personally, I really like the overall idea of such a quick turnaround all last month, when MBA owners kept indicating they wanted to wait to start until they were allowed to have a meaningful amount of ticket buying fans in the stands.

I kept saying on this show that well, I want a pony but that wasn't happening anytime soon either.

And at some point it becomes dangerous to the health of the sport, to just keep waiting and waiting for medical advancements that could be six months away or more.

By the way, after I said that several of you out there actually offered me a pony, which is sort of missing the point, but also delightful.

So thank you Anyway, I think it is great that owners seem to have come to terms with the fact that, like so many of us, they are just going to have to adjust their expectations.

For this year, there will be less money to go around.

The work conditions won't be ideal At some point.

You just dig in and do it.

Avoiding your finals running into the Olympics is smart.

Avoiding your finals running into football season is smart.

Preserving Christmas as the MBA's Day is smart, not just generally in the long term, but specifically this season, when starting in late December will reportedly prevent the league from losing additional hundreds of millions in revenue.

Plus, you get the fun music for more of two thirds of the league's teams, the ones that didn't go deep in the playoffs.

It won't even be that short of an off season.

Of course, just because something is a good overall idea doesn't mean it isn't going to be super complicated.

There is the negotiation with the players, who are likely going to be asked to put up to 40% of their salaries in escrow to balance out the projected loss of revenue.

There is figuring out how many games this season would be.

72 is a popular number right now, but could that change?

And how is the league going to handle Positive Cove?

It test if it plays outside a bubble.

We've seen non bubble leagues like the NFL already have to reschedule games, and that's with the benefit of six days between games and properly testing and containing outbreaks.

The MBA would be attempting several games a week with players who sweat and breathe all over each other, not in a giant open air stadium, but in a closed arena.

And what about the States where the local government does allow, say, even just 500 fans in the building are Player is gonna be okay with breathing all of their air to.

There's also the issue of the calendar leading into the December start.

Right now, the N B A draft isn't scheduled until November 18th and free agency not until after that.

If training camps start December 1st, it is hard to make the math work on the time needed for players coming from far away to quarantine.

And if a team does have a run of cove, it ripped through the building.

There's no pad built into training camp for players to get back onto the court and any kind of game shape, not to mention the threat of actual serious illness.

It's a lot, so leave your sunglasses and hats at the turnstile, buckle up and get ready for quite a ride.

All right, Matt.

So how do you think players like LeBron say, as Danny Green pointed out, will handle the shortened offseason?

If training camps really are back on December 1st?

I don't think they'll like it.

I think it's too fast and I'm not looking at dollar signs or revenue for owners.

Don't think I'm looking at players, and not only was last year a unique situation, physically, emotionally, but it was mentally draining.

You know what I mean?

And people don't take that into account too often when you think about athletes, those guys were mentally exhausted along with physically exhausted.

So I think to start this fast after the season just ended.

It is a bad move.

I understand you wanna, you know, ratings might be down.

You wanna capture that Christmas Day game?

But to me, it's more about having your star players ready to play for the long haul.

And I think if you start too early, you're gonna risk injury with a lot of these guys that had to make a long run into the playoffs.

Yet when money faces off against purity of the game, money wins and money is going to win this to LeBron and Anthony Davis.

They're going to show up on Christmas or December 22nd.

Whether they play or not is the question, and I do think there will be some load management.

There'll be some easing into the season.

There will be some straight up ugly basketball for the first two months of the season and forget about it.

And that's even leaving aside all the complications with the virus that Rachel you talked about in the monologue and the schedule and all of that.

But look, I mean, some players haven't played already in seven months.

Some of those guys air probably in great shape.

Keep doing what you're doing.

Some of those guys, maybe they got out of shape.

They gotta start ramping up.

It's gonna be different for each player.

It stinks for the teams who won the championship, you got to the finals in the bubble.

It is a quick turn around, and everyone's just gonna have to deal with it because money is going to win this argument.

That's the bottom line.

Well, thing to remember to is it's not all players.

And look, the bottom eight teams in the league.

Matt were asked to sacrifice right.

They did a bubble without them, and those eight teams were told Hey, sorry about this.

You're just not gonna play for maybe up to even a year now.

It's not gonna turn out that long, but still, we're leaving you out for health.

and safety reasons.

And this is gonna go on without you.

Well, now it's the top eight teams that are basically gonna be asked to sacrifice, and that's the most likely you're going to see a majority, those top 18 back in the playoffs.

I think the only teams that got left out, they're gonna be in the mix.

Sure, if they are Golden State in Brooklyn.

But outside of that to me, I like I said, I think you want to err on the side of caution when it comes to this, and I understand what Zaka saying.

I mean, money rules the world not only in sports, but just the world in general, so money probably will possibly win.

But I agree.

If they do come back before the turn of the year, it's gonna be a lot of management.

They possibly could play on the opening night because it's so much energy emotion.

But then you and then we're gonna start complaining about the load management, starting with some of these guys that had to make these runs.

So it's a tough situation, you know?

I wish them the best of luck trying to figure it out Yeah, and that is gonna be tough if we get into January.

And the Tuesday game is two teams playing without stars, and it's not gonna look quite how it looks in the bubble, Right?

Unless every arena builds those huge video boards, no matter how dramatic you make the lighting, you're gonna see empty seats.

You're going to see some of the stuff we've seen any other sports that make it just feel kind of more directly G than really officials.

So they're gonna have to work out.

Ah, lot.

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