NBA fans are thrilled to hear that a 22-team version of the league’s postseason will tip off next month. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst is chief amongst them. He told The Rich Eisen Show that the league announcing it was coming back was “a good moment” in “a very long run of dark days” in America.
Windhorst did say that not all fans will be equally as thrilled with the NBA’s plan. With 13 teams in the Western Conference being invited to the tournament at Walt Disney World’s Wide World of Sports complex, Windhorst says it is impossible for all of the teams to play the same schedule.
“Zion Williamson is a made-for-TV player, he’s probably going to have to play more difficult games than the Phoenix Suns,” the NBA reporter said. “There’s going to be an inherent unfairness and fans and teams are going to complain about it and they’re all going to be right, but they’re all going to have deal with it.”
It makes sense that ESPN and Turner would want to be able to sell as many matchups between headlining players like LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, and Zion Williamson as possible. There are nine teams from the Eastern Conference in the tournament as well. While that will create an unbalanced schedule, it may be easier to ensure that those teams play a similar schedule en route to the knockout round.
Fans should expect “five or six games per day” in Orlando according to Windhorst. He says there is a very good chance that fans will see a lot of weekday afternoon playoff games. With many people still working from home, those games won’t suffer from the absence of viewers that they might under regular circumstances.
