The NBA is taking strides towards resuming play again. Today Shams Charania of The Athletic reported on twitter about an important step the NBA is taking.
“The NBA and NBPA are forming a working group and have a call Tuesday to discuss return-to-play strategies; will include NBPA president Chris Paul and players Russell Westbrook, Jayson Tatum, Kyle Lowry, Dwight Powell.”
The NBA suspended the season on March 10th, 2020 after Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz tested positive for COVID-19.
Since then, the NBA has been working on a plan to resume play. With stay at home orders getting extended in major cities, resuming play has proved to be a difficult task. Several team executives, NBA agents, and announcers like Charles Barkley have called on the league to completely cancel the season. Barkley did bring up some great points in the video in the article.
One NBA league executive told CNBC the following in regards to reopening:
“It is the responsibility of the league office to explore all options for a return to play this season. We owe that to our fans, teams, players, partners and all who love the game. While our top priority remains everyone’s health and well-being, we continue to evaluate all options to finish this season. At the same time, we are intensely focused on addressing the potential impact of Covid-19 on the 2020-21 season.”
This meeting with players could be a step in that direction once the NBA gets a better feel for where the players are at with everything.
There was still a lot of NBA season left. The Golden State Warriors were the only team that was eliminated from playoff contention mathematically. No one knows what finishing the season would look like. I have seen ideas tossed around from one big tournament with 24 teams to a tournament with all 30 teams. Some of these wild ideas actually interest me. Especially considering that there would most likely be no fans in the stand. We would need something extra to keep us all interested.
