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The NBA will reportedly take the next four weeks to decide whether to resume play this season, but there is growing optimism that basketball will return this year, despite the new coronavirus pandemic.
The season has been suspended since March 11, when Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert became the first player to test COVID-19 positive.
On Tuesday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver made a call to the NBA Board of Governors during which he outlined a schedule to make a decision on a possible restart. According to Shams Charania of AthleticSilver told the Board of Governors that he intended to make a decision in the next two to four weeks, while ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski suggested that the commissioner left the virtual meeting with confidence that the season will resume.
In the call, Silver and the board of directors discussed different health and safety concerns, and the commissioner indicated that even a player with a positive result would not be enough to force the league to suspend the season a second time.
If a player’s testing “turned us off, we probably shouldn’t be following this path,” he said.
Widespread testing has been a major hurdle for professional leagues looking to resume. Health officials from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. USA And Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key member of President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force, has repeatedly stated that widespread testing is non-negotiable for leagues with the goal of returning to the action.
NBA teams can currently use different tests at this time, but Silver indicated that the league would establish a protocol for the 30 teams that, among other things, will standardize tests for all franchises.
The problem with generalized testing is twofold. While the NBA needs teams to regularly evaluate its players and staff, it is also aware of the image it will represent at a time when testing for the general public in most of the 50 states.
In March, New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio criticized the Brooklyn Nets for evaluating all of their players after four individuals emerged, including Kevin Durant, who had tested positive for COVID-19.
“The tests should not be for the rich, but for the sick,” De Blasio tweeted.
Crucially, league executives were reportedly not confident that widespread testing would be available within the next month.
While Silver indicated that a decision will be made on whether the league will resume in the next four weeks, details about the locations and format remain incomplete.
The NBA is considering plans for teams to play at select centers across the country, such as Las Vegas or Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
Both locations have the necessary facilities to play and the number of hotels to keep players isolated from the general public for as long as it takes to complete the regular season.
In terms of what format the season would follow when and if he returns, Silver said a decision had not yet been made. Over the weekend, the NBA commissioner said he hoped the rest of the regular season could end and that the playoffs could follow its traditional format.
While resuming procedures at select centers would allow the NBA to play numerous games on the same day, finish the regular season, and play the postseason in its traditional format, with eight teams per conference playing seven-game series in each round, it would take a number of time considered
If the league follows that format, the NBA Finals could be played well into the summer instead of its traditional early June slot.
Meanwhile, according to the Associated Press, NBA players are overwhelmingly in favor of getting back into action sometime this season.
Citing an informal survey conducted by the National Basketball Players Association, the AP reported that players were not only determined to compete in the playoffs, but were also willing to conclude the regular season.
“Everyone in the league wants to finish this year,” said Larry Nance Jr. of Cleveland.
“One, obviously because we love the game, but at the same time there is a great possibility that we will lose, more than 20 percent of our contracts, which is for many quite important boys.
As of Wednesday morning, nearly 1.37 million cases of coronavirus have been reported in the United States. By far the highest number of any country in the world. There have been more than 82,300 deaths in the US. USA And more than 230,000 people have recovered, according to Johns Hopkins University, which has been tracking the outbreak using combined data sources.
More than 291,900 people have died worldwide since the coronavirus outbreak was first identified in Wuhan, a city located in China’s central Hubei province, late last year. There have been more than 4.26 million confirmed cases worldwide.
Stacy Revere / Getty
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