Father Time Is Undefeated

"Father Time is undefeated" -Charles Barkley-  I don't know if Sir Charles thought this quote up himself, but I believe that it is very appropriate for describing what promises to be a very chaotic NBA season.  I am going to address this imminent trainwreck in greater detail for tonight's entry, and then I will let it be...  I am currently watching the Jazz/Lakers game as I type this.  With each passing day it seems that NBA analysts and commentators are starting to vocalize with greater frequency what is in store during this condensed regular season schedule, but I still don't think that they grasp the magnitude of how turbulent the scene will be with injuries, fatigued players, missed games,  increased stress levels, etc...  I addressed this issue quite awhile back, but just like some of the predictions that I have made in the past, the more that I think about this, I don't see any way that a frenzied, previously uncharted atmosphere will be avoided.  Players are not going to have adequate time to recover between games during this schedule of 66 games being crammed into 4 months.  It is not even major injuries that I am necessarily referring to as being problematic.  The potential for bumps and bruises and ankle sprains and various other 'nuisance' injuries becoming more serious are a very real threat.  A factor that I don't think I have given enough time to before is the fact that a lot of these players may not have played much serious basketball since their teams' seasons ended in April, May, or June of last season.  It is already the end of December, a full half-year in some cases for many of these players.  It is my experience that no matter what type of offseason program you put yourself through, it is rarely as tough as the actual grind of the season of the sport in which you participate.  Many players will literally be trying to 'play their way into shape' during the regular season since the preseason only consisted of two games.  Another point that I did not address before was the fact that coaching staffs (who normally work most of the time anyway) will have less than a day in many cases to scout their next opponent and relay that information to their own team.  The quality of basketball is going to be way down during the regular season due to fatigued starters and to the number of bench players who will be seeing record minutes along the way.  Although this could be a potential source of contention for ticket-buying fans, virtually every team in the league should be in the playoff chase for most of the season because there are not going to be a lot of games for that 8th seeded team to separate itself from the pack of teams trailing it.  The teams within the top 8 of each conference should also be packed pretty tightly.  I found this to be true when I did my regular-season predictions blog entry.  I didn't group the eight playoff seeds in order until after I had assigned every team a record, and predictably the whole group was pretty stacked fairly close to each.  The potential for seeds to flip-flop in the last few weeks of play will be very high.  I have to smile - as I'm typing this, the Lakers are still playing Kobe Bryant, up 24 points on the Jazz with 6 minutes remaining in the game...  Tsk, tsk, tsk...  I have to ashamedly admit that I am more interested in watching games during this regular season just to see how all of this plays out.  Knowing that the players and owners are making MILLIONS of dollars makes me feel less guilty though...  Okay, that's the last time that I am getting up on that soapbox for awhile...

I want to extend a sincere thanks to you for stopping by and reading my blog.  'The View From Bikini Hill' was born exactly 3 months ago today, on September 28th, and today the blog went over the 2,000 mark for  views.  Whether you are here for my Monday rambles, my surprisingly accurate college football predictions, or my TRUCKLOAD of missed NFL picks during the past month, thank you for following the blog.  Hopefully when the NFL reduces that field of teams to 12 this weekend, my selections there will be a lot more accurate.  I hope that you have a great day and I'll see you on again on Thursday.