Due to the unraveling coronavirus pandemic, which has halted the sports landscape to a standstill, including the NBA, there is a burgeoning question on whether the 2020 NBA title will be considered legitimate or not. According to Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, there should not be an “asterisk” affixed to the 2020 champion.
“People don't look at [how the season played out],” Cuban told The Dan Patrick Show, via Bleacher Report, on Friday. “People just look at the rings on your finger.”
“No, no more than 1999,” Cuban said. “Everybody said 1999 there'd always be an asterisk and no one remembers.”
“Or even 2012,” Cuban continued. “When there was a 66-game, post-lockout season. No one brought that up and that was a big deal because you were playing back-to-back-to-back games to get to 66 games into a season. And so that was even more difficult.”
An NBA restart, planned for July 30 in Orlando, Florida, will certainly be quite the sight given the fan-less environment, but as Cuban mentioned, in the endgame, people only care about the Finals winner—not the circumstances surrounding the season.
Mark Cuban also made reference to the 1998-99 season and Finals, which saw a 50-game season implemented, starting in Feb. 1999, following a labor dispute between owners and players resulting in a lockout by the owners. The San Antonio Spurs later defeated the New York Knicks in the 1999 Finals.
The next shortened season occurred in 2011-12, after another lockout. The regular season started on Christmas Day in 2011 — a similar scenario that could possibly befell the start of the 2020-21 campaign — and later resulted in the Miami Heat defeating the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Finals (LeBron James' first championship win).
Cuban's Mavericks still have championship aspirations, as last year's Rookie of the Year honoree Luka Doncic, a first-time All-Star in 2020, has the squad seventh in the Western Conference and will be resuming along with 21 other teams in Orlando.
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