The Clippers were originally scheduled to face the Knicks tonight at Madison Square Garden. With games on hold for now, we take a look at how both teams match up when it comes to today’s news from around the NBA.
Bill Simmons named the Clippers his biggest potential “what if” should the rest of the 2019-20 NBA season be cancelled.
The winner: The Clippers take the win here, for the fact that they are in this discussion at all. Even though a cancelled season would bring their championship hopes to an end for this year, at least those hopes are alive and well for the foreseeable future. That’s more than we can say for the Knicks, who should be jumping for joy if this season is remembered for anything else than what happened on the court.
Brian Windhorst speculates if the season does come back, it could stretch into September.
The winner: If play does resume for the 2019-20 season it’s an obvious win for the Clippers more so than the Knicks. Los Angeles would get the chance to chase a title, even if the Finals are played in late, late, late Summer. No matter when that potential title run may come, it would obviously be good for the Clippers, while the Knicks should be counting down the days until this season is officially over.
The 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be postponed, most likely until 2021.
The winner: While it’s hard to say anybody “wins” with the cancellation of the Olympic games, we’re going to give this win to the Clippers as well. With no summer games, likely USA men’s basketball roster members Kawhi Leonard and Paul George can take the chance to rest instead of putting extra game-miles on their odometers. They’re likely to sit out in the summer of 2021 as chances are they’ll both be free agents at the time with their eyes on max deals after they presumably decline to take the player option for the 2021-22 season on their current contracts. The Knicks potential Olympians (RJ Barrett for Canada, Frank Ntilikina for France) would most likely benefit from the extra runs on the world-wide stage this summer. They’ll have to wait for now.
Charles Barkley announced, in a statement though Mark Stein on Twitter, that the results of his test for COVID-19 came back negative.
The winner: A healthy Charles Barkley is a win for everybody. Unless, of course, you’re the Knicks who Barkley has used his wit and strong opinions to be very openly critical about in the recent past. A healthy Barkley is a talkative Barkley, and that could mean bad news for the Knicks. A loss for them is a default win here for the Clippers.
New York Knicks guard Frank Ntilikina is quietly improving.
The winner: We had to give one “W” to the Knicks here. There are reasons for Knicks fans to be optimistic about the future of their former top-10 draft pick. Hope about the future is good for everybody in these times, especially the Knicks.
Overall Winner: The Clippers. Even though they may miss their shot at a title and Olympic gold, they avoid the potential roasting from an invigorated, healthy Charles Barkley. At least the Knicks have some young talent to look forward to continuing to develop.
Up Next: The Clippers will take on the Brooklyn Nets Wednesday, March 25. We’ll see who wins the battle for the best news of the day then.