With the reports baseball will not be able to return until July, it would seem very unlikely other professional sports leagues would be able to return sooner. That’s problematic for the NBA who not only has to figure out how to make up the 17 games remaining in their season (not happening at this point), and they have to find a way to have the playoffs.

As we know the NBA playoffs take forever. With the first round being lengthened to a best-of-seven, it now takes two months to play just the playoffs. Frankly, that is time the NBA doesn’t have. That is, unless, they want to play into September, take a short break, and begin the 2020 – 2021 NBA season shortly thereafter.

Realistically speaking, the NBA needs to truncate their playoffs significantly. Ideally, they also need to find a way to deliver NBA content to fans who would have otherwise not seen their teams play.

Seeing how popular it is with the NCAA, and our having missed out on it due to COVID19, perhaps the NBA can create their own version of March Madness to try to find the 2020 NBA Champion. If you think about it, with there being 30 NBA teams, it is almost like being in the second round of the tournament already.

After playing some warm-up games or having a brief training camp, the NBA can have their own “Selection Sunday” where they rank all 30 NBA teams and set up brackets. This could be helpful in the event they are able to play in some cities but not others. Keep in mind, this is another way to manage the situation where things improve in one area of the country but not another.

Looking at the current standings, we could set up four regions named after one of the greats from each of the top four number one seeds. Here is how the brackets could shake out:

Looking at this bracket, you already see some interesting match-ups. Even if the Knicks have been relevant only once in the past 20 years, anytime you get Knicks-Heat in the playoffs, it’s intense. The Warriors go from their season being over to having Steph Curry, a March Madness legend, primed and ready to go on a run.

Depending on when he can return, you can say the same about Kevin Durant and the Nets. Overall, seeing how this is the NBA, there really isn’t any easy draws. That said, you can see the Bucks have been rewarded for having the top record over the games which could be played.

At some point, while one-and-done is fun, we should get back to having best-of-series. Definitively, the NBA Finals should be a best-of-seven series. Perhaps, the “Final Four” could be as well. If time permits, the proverbial regional finals be some form of a “best of” as well.

Generally speaking, this is a unique concept to get NBA fans excited, and it is a way to get someone in every city interested. It also gives them something to look forward to after self isolation/quarantine and an eternity without any sports. This is also a quick way to get a playoff in when the NBA may not have the time to do a full playoff as they otherwise would have wanted.

In the end, this is just one fun idea. There are bound to be others with some of them perhaps being better. In the end, this is a more fun discussion than sitting around and fretting over whether the games will ever be played.