No home-court advantage for the Los Angeles Lakers
With the only feasible option being all of the remaining games played in one centralized location, this actually punishes the teams at the top of the standings. You now have a level playing field for every team in the field that wouldn’t typically be in place under normal circumstances.
In any normal season, the Lakers would have home-court advantage through at least the Western Conference Finals. And there are few home-court advantages in the NBA that can rival the one the Lakers have at the Staples Center. In this new scenario, that can pretty much be thrown out the window.
Teams who were jostling for the lower playoff seeds in each conference are now given a reprieve as they get to play the league’s best at a neutral site. There’s no heckling from fans and no getting used to the rims and layout of the arena in a hostile road atmosphere.
The discomfort has been minimized greatly. With all that said, it’s just another unprecedented challenge that the 2020 champions can say they overcame while other champions cannot.