Brian Windhorst 'Scolded' By NBA, Union For Reports Of 'Pessimism' About Resuming Season Brian Windhorst reported last week that there was an increase in pessimism about the NBA's chances of resuming the 19-20 season and that the league and union were discussing a deal to shut down the rest of the season. Windhorst revealed that his reporting received blowback from both the NBA and the union. "I've spent every day for the last 10 or 15 days talking to people in the league about what it will take to get to return to play," said Windhorst on The Hoop Collective podcast. "I have heard so many different opinions for so many different things. I don't know if it makes someone who is aware or my mind is too cluttered. I've swung from optimism to pessimism and I've been scolded by both the league office and the union for being pessimistic. Scolded!" The NBA has discussed a scenario in which they could restart the season with all teams living under quarantine in Las Vegas. The availability of rapid-result testing both for the NBA and for the general public is believed to be necessary for resuming the season. "I think we're going to have to have ubiquitous antibody testing to see if you've ever had it," added Windhorst.
https://theathletic.com/1735768/202...jazz-during-the-days-that-changed-everything/ What’s next? The NBA is continuing daily meetings with league officials and basketball operations staffers. There are conference calls with owners, presidents and general managers on a regular basis. Mid-June, sources say, emerged weeks ago as an optimistic target time at which they hope for a return. In public and private moments, commissioner Adam Silver has made it clear that the NBA will not return until health officials and the CDC give full clearance. If and when the NBA is able to resume its season in a “bubble” city, one preliminary plan would be a two-week quarantine where teams can utilize facilities again and players can work out in solo settings, then a two-week training camp followed by an abbreviated regular season and playoffs, sources said. It would all take place without fans, according to those sources. Many team executives are preparing for a delayed NBA draft — as late as September. One potential scenario also discussed has the NBA entering a play-in tournament prior to the playoffs for the seventh seed and a few teams below, according to sources. But this is all fluid and these are all simply contingency plans, as Silver is well aware that the timetable will be determined by the virus. On a 45-minute call with Silver and the heads of 11 other prominent sports organizations, President Trump shared his frustration with the absence of sports and urged the commissioners to resume play as soon as possible, according to multiple sources. People close to multiple commissioners involved said they would continue to follow the advice of the health professionals, as opposed to Trump’s urges. This has shown the country — much less the NBA and its teams and players — that anything is possible. The NBA’s foremost contenders are the Milwaukee Bucks, Los Angeles Lakers and L.A. Clippers, with superstars LeBron James and Anthony Davis, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. A canceled season would make them all one year older, take a year off their contracts and take away a championship opportunity. You never know when you will receive the chance to compete for a title — and the inability to salvage the season before Davis’ free agency, James’ 36th birthday in December, Antetokounmpo’s 2021 free agency and Leonard’s and George’s final season before their 2021 player options would be crippling for all involved.
Yeah, this hit me the other day and it should have much sooner. A voided season really REALLY hurts Lebron. He doesn't have seasons to waste. He's going to be pushing hard for an end to this season and a crowned championship and probably DGAF if it means a shortened 2021 season, probably prefers it.
I wouldn't mind if they just played it out on the Xbox or other console. It would be something else for a change. Best E-sport team wins. Minimum risk. Outside the box thinking.
It'd be a blast watching a wacky finish with no fans and short playoff series, but so many things have to go right for it to happen. I'd bet on the season eventually being canceled (hope I'm wrong).
My top five moments of this season... 5. Curry returning with wiggins 4. Zion Williamson returning 3. Carmelo contributing after Portland lost Myers Leonard and Moe harkless 2.pozingis,Seth Curry, and Doncic pushing 7 seed and true to run for 6th seed! 1. Trae young with atlanta scoring 50 last I counted 8 times!
I hope they cancel the entire playoffs so I can get a refund on my Rockets Championship Vegas bet. I doubt it happens though, and predict all NBA playoff teams getting tested while sick people are still going through hoops (pun intended) to get approval for testing.
Windhorst: NBA Looking At 25-Day Preparation Window For Potential Return The NBA is considering a plan that would take 25 days for teams and players to prepare for the return of games, reported Brian Windhorst of ESPN. "They’re spending a lot of time getting a back-to-basketball plan ready. They hope they get to use it. In talking to executives and trainers around the league, what they're looking at is a 25-day return to basketball window. Hopefully at some point they can enact it. "An 11-day series of individual workouts, where there'd be social distancing for a period of time, and then hopefully, if the clearance comes that they can play five-on-five basketball, a 14-day training camp," said Windhorst on Sportscenter. Windhorst, who was recently scolded by the league for being too pessimistic about the season returning, added that the timetable meant that the NBA would put out a 3-and-a-half to four week notice if the season were to restart.
Amick: Can this NBA season be saved? Sources say that optimism is growing Spoiler In most walks of life, the adage of “If there’s a will, there’s a way” works like a charm. And then there’s this. A global pandemic that touches millions and brings professional sports leagues to an abrupt and expensive halt, with the COVID-19 experience forcing them to reconsider their place in society at large while assessing the many morbid dangers that come with an eventual restart. Their business doesn’t matter in the grander sense, but there is a ton of money involved and livelihoods well beyond the athletes themselves to ponder. The collective will could be through the roof, and there still might not be a way. So with politicians, stakeholders and (hopefully) doctors as well as scientists filling their ears with all the latest perspectives, we now see all these commissioners coordinating with their people and even the President while knowing full well that the answers and the clarity about how this should all unfold will have to come over time. Patience is a virtue, but it’s tougher to come by when there’s cash leaking out of every last crevice in your company. Which brings us to the NBA’s Board of Governors meeting on Friday that sources say will take place in … the digital ether. The meeting, which will be a virtual version of the session that is an annual affair this time of year, will take place over the video service of their choosing and will likely include Adam Silver reminding everyone that there’s no way to know whether the 2019-20 season is salvageable just yet. The NBA commissioner has said publicly that he won’t have a substantive update until May 1, but this will still be a place for the different viewpoints, strategies and concerns to be heard while they wait. Yet despite all the worldwide despair that has come with these past few weeks, with America soaring to the top of the list in both coronavirus cases (633,267, with Spain second at 180,659) and deaths (28,278, with Italy second at 21,067), there’s a reality within NBA circles that is hard to reconcile at the moment. When it comes to the prospect of saving this season in some form, sources say that optimism abounds in the ownership, player, agent and league office ranks. In the interest of full transparency, I didn’t poll every owner, player or agent out there. Not even close. But in making the rounds with some of the more prominent people in those communities, I quickly found it apparent that there’s a shared goal of finding a way of finishing this campaign and a widespread sense that it’s still feasible. Somehow. Some way. Without fans being present at games, of course. As California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti made so clear in recent days, it will be quite some time until the sports world can return to the days of packed stadiums and arenas. Ditto for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who told CBS this week that a fans-in-the-stands existence is a long ways off for pro sports leagues but expressed a desire for televised games to return in the not-so-distant future. For the NBA, which has approximately 80 percent of its regular season completed and so much financial incentive to cobble together some kind of postseason, the widespread optimism that this will happen remains. But is it possible? No one truly knows, but it is quite clear that these internal conversations about finding a solution remain robust. And Silver, whose track record as a respected and responsible leader affords him the benefit of the doubt here, is the one who must figure out what sort of schedule might be workable while never forgetting that the virus will have the final say. A few relevant thoughts that were gleaned from these conversations and that will likely play a part here… While some players in other sports have pushed back against the notion of a “Bubble City” in which players, staff and some media might be quarantined in a neutral location, several NBA players with whom I spoke shared a different view. The Los Angeles Angels’ Mike Trout was the most notable to highlight some of the obstacles recently, as he detailed his concerns in an interview with NBC Sports. “Basketball guys are for it — they want to play,” one NBA player from a title-contending team wrote. “MLB (is) different (because) they have a whole season. We just have 1-2 months to finish up.” One looming question, the player added, is whether their families would be allowed to join them in the “Bubble City” or any other location they might wind up playing. By all accounts, Las Vegas appears to remain as the leader in the NBA’s quarantine clubhouse. The combination of hotel space, hoops facilities and the rough blueprint that was built from all those summer leagues past is an interesting option, with all the teams staying under one sanitized roof. You also hear other scenarios in which teams might wind up playing in various locations. But plenty of unresolved questions remain. With the testing shortage being such a serious problem to this point, will the NBA be able to secure the number of quick-turnaround tests necessary to ensure its players, coaches, staff members, et al. are safe? As Brooklyn Nets guard/National Basketball Players Association vice president Garrett Temple discussed on the “Tampering” podcast recently, this is key. “The 45-minute (COVID-19) test results is big, the ability to be able to test and get the results that quickly,” Temple said. “I think if we have a situation where we know the testing can be done, where we know whether the person has it in a much more timely manner, and we test right before we go into the facility, wherever we end up playing, (is ideal). Everybody gets tested — if we have enough tests to go around and do that. I feel comfortable enough that the league will have it under control to where we can play if (all the players) are negative.” Even if the league could secure these tests, there is serious potential for a PR nightmare on this front — again. In those early weeks after the Rudy Gobert positive test, when so many teams seemed to have little trouble getting tests for their teams while so many people enjoyed no such luxury and suffered as a result, there was criticism about the haves and have-nots element in it all. The optics weren’t great, to say the least. Not long thereafter, sources say the NBA made it clear to its teams that they were not required to disclose the results of COVID-19 tests to the media and, by proxy, the fans. Translation: The public doesn’t actually know how many players were infected by the virus beyond the seven that have been previously reported, but the choice was made to handle that information internally unless the player himself chose to share his information. There’s no value judgment here, per se, but it’s a fact nonetheless. And if the league is going to ensure everyone’s safety, from the players to the equipment managers to the front office executives and the older coaches like Houston’s Mike D’Antoni and Orlando’s Steve Clifford, who have suffered health scares before, there will need to be routine testing throughout the restart process. It’s hard to assess the ethics of this testing subplot just yet without knowing what the national testing landscape looks like when the summer rolls around. But considering the massive part that America’s testing shortage has played in this country’s struggles to ward off COVID-19, with the New York Times deeming it an “epic failure” and so many politicians echoing that sentiment, it’s safe to assume that this will be a raw-nerve topic for the foreseeable future. With good reason. League officials need to handle this part of their plan with extreme sensitivity. Above all else, the timing component here is what grabbed my attention the most. If the league is willing to push the season back until the late summer and deal with whatever the ripple effect of such a choice might be from there, then you start seeing how this might be possible. One team owner, for example, discussed a scenario in which players were given approximately a month to get back in shape (including their team training camp) starting in early June, the regular season began in July and the Finals were eventually played in … late October. Another owner agreed wholeheartedly that league-wide confidence was growing that this season would be saved, as did a few other folks who have a quality read of the room. There’s wiggle room within these informal discussions that appears to be aiding the mood too. Do you try to finish the regular season schedule, maybe cut it in half or go straight to the playoffs? Do you go with a five-game first-round format just to speed it up? There is, it seems clear, a willingness to be flexible that is keeping the NBA’s hope alive. For now.
The NBA is doing everything possible to shoe horn a remainder of the season even if it means decreased quality of play, a very shortened off season and the possibility of increased injury. I wish they would just be smart and call it, and worry about having a semi normal season next year.
Well apparently our President and our owner are on a completely different page than you on this matter, along with a slew of other NBA execs. When the leaders of the Nation/League aren't taking this pandemic as serious as it is, how/why should anyone else? It's really stupid that we are putting all of these people at risk just to finish an NBA season. Not only are the players at risk but the; coaches, training staffs, medical teams, broadcasters, hotel employees, etc. are as well, if this "bubble" scenario were to truly play out. It's pretty f***in stupid if you ask me.
