On This Day In NBA History: August 1 - T.J. Warren Goes Off In NBA Bubble
The NBA has hardly played in the month of August, but the 2019-20 season was unlike any other due to the battle we faced with the coronavirus pandemic.
With all professional sports leagues shutting down in March 2020, the NBA halted play near the end of the regular season. Nearly five months later, the NBA came up with a plan to resume action by partnering with Disney.
In what is now known as the “2020 NBA Bubble” at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida, basketball was back and the NBA resumed the 2019-20 season with every team who was either in playoff contention or on the verge of making the playoffs, giving those teams who were on the outside looking in a chance to earn a playoff spot in the NBA Bubble.
One of the first games since the shutdown that year featured the Indiana Pacers taking on the Philadelphia 76ers, a game that featured an unexpected 50-point scorer.
On this day in 2020, T.J. Warren scored a career-high 53 points against the 76ers, shooting 20-29 from the floor and 9-12 from three-point range. This was Warren’s best game of his career and in the NBA Bubble, he averaged 26.6 points, 6.3 rebounds and 2.4 assists in 10 games.
Heading into the 2020-21 season, many began to believe that T.J. Warren could possibly take his performances from the league’s resumption of play and become an All-Star-like talent for the Pacers, but then he suffered a foot injury four games into the new year.
This injury resulted in a couple of corrective surgeries for Warren and as a result, he has not played in an actual game since December 29, 2020.
Reaching an agreement on a one-year, $2.6 million deal with the Brooklyn Nets this offseason, Warren is on-track to play in the first game of the 2022-23 season and he could end up being a key factor in Brooklyn’s championship efforts.
There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding this franchise right now given the drama with both Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving this offseason, but should both All-Stars remain with the Nets for the start of the year, this team could end up being a true championship contender.
T.J. Warren has a chance to make a real difference with his new team and if he can rekindle some of the magic he had in the NBA Bubble, then the Nets will potentially have themselves yet another All-Star-like talent to utilize.
