“You and me, we don’t even have a choice…”

– Apollo Creed, Rocky

In the first (and greatest) film in the Rocky series, middling fighter Rocky Balboa has been invited to the fight of his life, a one-in-a-million shot at the heavyweight title. Rocky debates his options as to whether to fight. He knows that if he does, odds are good he’ll be embarrassed or worse. If he doesn’t, he’ll have to live with a life of passing up his one best shot over fear and anxiety. Neither choice is optimal, but he chooses the one in which he can best live with the worst possible outcome. Rocky chooses the probability of a physical beating over the surety of a psychological one, and ends up being rewarded for his risk.

I found myself in a similarly tough-to-choose position a few weeks ago, in a difficult situation with a work superior. Once it started, I had a decision to make. I could stay, and weather a semi-regular emotional beating, or take an unknown leap into what was then still a semi-favorable job market. I made the decision to leave with my dignity semi-intact, even without a sure landing spot. Strangely, I made a very similar decision right before the ’08 downturn. I have a spectacular sense of timing, but would still make both choices all over again.

With either of the above examples, the commissioners and league offices of the NBA and NHL would probably kill for a set of bad choices so simple to choose between. Adam Silver and Gary Bettman have both given interviews in the last three days with broadly laid answers, plans, and decisions left wide open by the unknowns of an actual date of return. The nearly-concurrent league schedules were interrupted a month ago as both of their seasons were winding down, with the Stanley Cup Playoffs originally having been slated to start two days ago, and the NBA Playoffs originally set only a couple weeks later. Each has already missed a month of play, and look to have at least another month of outage on the way. Major League Baseball has also seen an interruption to the start of it’s season, and will have it’s own set of difficult decisions to make once the dust of coronapocalypse starts to settle. Here’s the trio of tough calls the NBA and NHL offices may be choosing between – if they even find themselves with the option to return.

Pick Up Where We Left Off

This will be a tempting play for both leagues if they are able to return before the summer officially starts. The Avalanche only had a dozen regular season games left to play, and the Nuggets only 17. If both leagues can still call this season official by getting in their full complement of games in a compressed timeline, they know there will be a much smaller asterisk next to the 2019-2020 seasons as recorded. The reward is great for the leagues if they can pull this off, in keeping venues full and revenues maximized. The risk in this scenario is also great, in bringing athletes who have now had two months off from game-play action into a compressed schedule that means everything to the outcome. The possibility of injury is high, which also carries over into next season with the assumption of an also-compressed offseason. Money, good. Bodies, bad. Being that this would probably require an early-May return to work, the odds of either league even being able to entertain this possibility seem slim.

Hunger Games Playoff-Style

Did we say Regular Season? Well, welcome to a world in which you didn’t get those last dozen-or-so games to get in, get out, or get things figured out. Where you stood when the world collectively hiccuped is where you get to start. If you were in ninth, you’re already off the board. While a little brutal and abrupt, this would at least allow both leagues to save face in declaring an eventual champion and allowing fanbases, players, franchises, and contracts to all collectively turn a page. This would allow the leagues to not only salvage their always-lucrative playoff games, but also to be a real feel-good aspect of a return to normalcy for fans and teams alike. Should the shutdown end in time to allow it, this seems the most likely outcome. It will be a tough pill to swallow for fanbases who were hoping to make it into the playoffs, or who had hoped for better seedings or matchups, but with both seasons over 80% complete, it’s an understandable compromise.

There’s Always Next Year

While this may simply end up being the choice that is forced upon them, both leagues may also simply conclude that the risk to returning players is too high, or continuity/integrity is to disjointed, or any one of a number of other reasons in which they bite the bullet and hope to simply be able to start on time in the Fall.

It’s a damned-if-you-do-n’t sort of a set of circumstances to be facing, no matter when these leagues are allowed to resume. If the very best case scenario were to happen and allow the NBA and NHL to resume by the summer, which of the choices would YOU make?