Coming off an 18-month stretch that included postseason play inside a single-site bubble, extended isolation from friends and family, an abundance of injuries that were (somewhat) brought on by an atypically tight regular season schedule and shortened offseason, dozens of players either contracting Covid-19 themselves or being held out of games and practice due to the league’s necessarily harsh health and safety protocols, NBA teams had a difficult time weighing what was real against what might not be sustainable in a normal environment.
These unprecedented factors made this offseason such a difficult one to participate in, let alone analyze from afar.