NBA, PLAYERS CONFIDENT IN SUCCESS OF RETURN PLAN
Silver pledges daily testing in early going, says only significant outbreak can halt play
Basketball moved closer to a return on Friday with the NBA and its players expressing a mix of caution and confidence that their Orlando-based plan for a July 30 restart will work.
Agreement was reached between the NBA and the NBA Players Association “on health and safety protocols that will govern the resumption of the season. The rigorous program, which addresses risks related to COVID-19 and focuses on the well-being of players, coaches, officials and staff, was developed in consultation with public health experts, infectious disease specialists and government officials.”
Both sides also agreed with Disney that all games will take place with no fans at ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver, deputy commissioner Mark Tatum, NBPA executive director Michele Roberts and union player heads Chris Paul and Andre Iguodala were on a conference call with reporters on Friday afternoon ahead of the release of the schedule.
“My ultimate conclusion is we can’t outrun the virus, and we’re going to be living with this for the foreseeable future,” Silver said. “Which is why we designed the campus the way we did.”
Roberts says about the proposed return: “We needed to make sure we could mitigate as much as possible ... a lot of hard work (went into it).”
Roberts dished out the credit for all of that work, recipients including Raptors all-star Kyle Lowry and Toronto native Dwight Powell of the Dallas Mavericks, among others.
“We go into the (return) optimistic ... I’m proud and pleased that the league is joining hands with us,” Roberts said.
“We never pictured ourselves playing in this situation,” Paul admitted.
“The top priority (though) is health and safety,” Paul said, pointing to mental health as much as physical. He credited the work of Kevin Love and longtime Toronto star Demar Derozan for pushing mental health concerns forward and into the open in recent years.
Silver said there would be daily testing, “at least to start,” but one positive test wouldn’t shut things down, no matter the calibre of player. He said it’s still being established about how many people would have to test positive for another shutdown to occur.
“If there is a significant spread, that may lead to us to stopping play,” he said.
He added the league and its players are working closely with government officials as well as with Disney to try to get Disney employees who would be going in and out of the campus tested more frequently.
On the conference call and in the news release, there was considerable talk of “strategies to increase Black representation across the NBA and its teams, ensure greater inclusion of Black-owned and operated businesses across NBA business activities, and form an NBA foundation to expand educational and economic development opportunities across the Black community.”
On the call, Silver said: “We think this is a unique opportunity for many reasons. I’m reluctant to make promises. Ultimately, we should be judged by our actions. We may be the most uniquely qualified organization in the world to effect change.”
Earlier Friday, the NBA revealed 302 players were tested on June 23 and 16 have tested positive for COVID-19.
The defending champion Toronto Raptors are already in a different part of Florida, having arrived in Fort Myers on Monday. Group workouts will begin only once teams have reported to the NBA campus at Disney.
A whopping 22.3 per cent of COVID-19 tests from Thursday were positive in Collier County, Fla., which includes. Fort Myers.
Teams participating will be the eight from each conference with the highest current winning percentage, along with six that are currently within six games of the eighth seed in either conference. Each will play eight “seeding games” to conclude its “regular season.”
It was revealed Friday on a broadcast that the Raptors would open play in Orlando against Lebron James and the Los Angeles Lakers on Aug. 1.
Raptors fans hope it will be a Finals preview. The Lakers have the best odds of winning the NBA title, ahead of Milwaukee, Kawhi Leonard’s Los Angeles Clippers, the Boston Celtics, Houston Rockets and the Raptors.
The Raptors enter the planned restart sitting second in the Eastern Conference with almost no chance of supplanting Milwaukee (6.5 games back) and three games up on the Celtics. Miami is 5.5 games behind Toronto, so the Raptors will likely stay in second place or fall to third.
It will not be an easy final eight games. Besides the Lakers, there are dates with Miami, Orlando, Boston, Memphis, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Denver, all quality opponents, save maybe for the Magic.
The seeding games will conclude Aug. 14. If a play-in is required to determine the eighth playoff seed in either conference, it will take place on Aug. 15-16. The first round of the 2020 NBA Playoffs will begin Aug. 17.
The NBA Finals will end no later than Oct. 13.
My ultimate conclusion is we can’t outrun the virus, and we’re going to be living with this for the foreseeable future ... Which is why we designed the campus the way we did.