To put into perspective both the whirlwind that was as well as the impending pathway back to normalcy, consider that over the course a single one-year period the Miami Heat will have completed their 2019-20 season, contested their entire 2020-21 season and then started the 2021-22 preseason.
Such is the reality presented to teams this past week, with the NBA planning to recalibrate back to its traditional October-June scheduling for next season.
In was on Oct. 11, 2020 that the Heat completed their pandemic-interrupted 2019-20 season with a loss in Game 6 of the NBA Finals to the Los Angeles Lakers. By Dec. 1, a mere 51 days later, they were back in training camp.
This time around, the schedule is far more forgiving, especially with the Heat’s season ending on May 29, after their 4-0 first-round playoff sweep at the hands of the Milwaukee Bucks.
According to the 2021-22 schedule outline forwarded to teams, training camps will open Sept. 28, with the regular season opening Oct. 19.
That leaves 120 days between the final bounce of 2020-21 and the first bounce of 2021 training camp for the Heat … although not necessarily for the entire roster.
And that could, yet, create another meatgrinder of a calendar.
With the 2020 Olympics shifted to this summer due to the coronavirus pandemic, the 2021 Tokyo Games now feature basketball competition that runs through the Aug. 6 medal games. Players making it to the finish there would be left with 52-day break, equivalent to last season’s turnaround.
For the Heat, that could be a concern, with Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and Duncan Robinson finalist for berths on Team USA. Of that group, Butler, who turns 32 in September, is expected to receive one of the initial invitations.
And it’s not just the Olympics themselves that are part of that commitment, with USA Basketball opening its Olympic camp on July 6 in Las Vegas. Five international exhibitions, through July 18, follow in Las Vegas.
That will make Olympic participation — with its required COVID-testing protocols, similar to what the NBA experienced this season — a month-long commitment.
For now, the Heat are at rest.
“Our players, our staff, the people that have been here every day, every single day, they’re mentally worn out more so than physically, and I think they just need to rest for a couple of weeks, a month,” Heat president Pat Riley said earlier this month.
Had the Heat made it to even one more game in their series against the Bucks, it would have meant competitive basketball in every month over a 12-month period with the exception of November 2020.
The whirlwind was such that the Heat bypassed their typical season-ending meetings.
“We will be in touch with players that are under contract to us over the next couple of weeks,” Riley said. “But I just wanted everybody to get out, rest and decompress.”
For most, it will be something far closer to a typical offseason. But should the Olympics go on as planned, it could lead to coach Erik Spoelstra having to make camp concessions, just as he did with previous Heat players returning from summer international competitions.
As for the long view, the 2022 NBA playoffs are scheduled to begin April 16, with the 2022 NBA Finals to be completed by June 19, 2022.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said at the All-Star break that the goal for 2021-22 is the type of return to normalcy now being scheduled, which is why he pressed for a completion of this season’s NBA Finals by late July.
“The plan remains to try to resume our season as close to so-called normal as possible next year,” he said. “It was one of the reasons why, in setting the schedule this year, we decided to stop in mid-July.
“We both wanted to allow those players who wanted to participate in the Olympics to do so, but in addition we realized if we were going to get back on cycle, and the players were going to get the appropriate downtime before the season began, we didn’t want to go deep into the summer or fall, as we did last season.”