Harrison Barnes made news in an unexpected way. Portland Trail Blazers star point guard Damian Lillard continued to push back after calling regular season games “meaningless” should the 2019-20 NBA season returning in the coming months. The 29-year-old Lillard, a five-time All-Star, and his Blazers are 3.5 games back behind the Memphis Grizzlies for the last spot in the Western Conference playoff picture.
Lillard got a boost from Sacramento Kings forward Harrison Barnes on Friday, with the veteran NBA champion backing up the Blazers star on Bleacher Report's Howard Beck's podcast “Full 48” (via SB Nation's Sactown Royalty):
“I think Dame is right. If you come back and play, you want to be playing for something.”
“There’s no other simulation that we can get for games. This group, where we’re at, we need to play, we need to play together, and playing for something is important.”
There are several proposals for NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and the league's Board of Governors (franchise owners), most of which point to either abandoning the rest of the regular season games—roughly less than a quarter of the final contests—or playing several games to determine the playoff field, which could include leaving out-of-contention teams out of the restarted season.
Harrison Barnes here iterates Lillard's point about “meaningless” games, as there is a chance the NBA resumes and the Blazers do not have a shot to make the postseason (one year removed from runner-up status to the Golden State Warriors in the 2019 Western Conference Finals).
Harrison Barnes, who joined the Kings in Feb. 2019 via trade with the Dallas Mavericks, signed a four-year, $85 million contract as a free agent last summer to stay in Sacramento. The Kings, along with the Blazers and New Orleans Pelicans, are tied 3.5 games back behind the Grizzlies.
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