MGM pitches plan for NBA to finish season in Vegas: Report
Teams worried about coronavirus affecting older staff
LOS ANGELES: MGM Resorts International has pitched a proposal to the NBA to complete the coronavirus-halted 2019-20 season on courts in Las Vegas convention centers, the New York Times reported.
The plan, according to the newspaper, would have players and their families, plus other essential personnel, stay in a quarantined area in MGM hotels along the Las Vegas Strip while practicing and competing on courts in the same facilities.
Players and broadcasters would have access to the usual resort facilities while in the protected area under the plan by MGM, which has 13 Vegas resort properties. The plan would convert MGM convention centers into 24 basketball courts, five of them equipped with cameras to permit television coverage, and players would reside in connected or nearby hotels.
ESPN has reported the NBA is looking at a similar quarantined area in Orlando involving hotels and courts in private Disney World areas. The NBA halted its season in March after Utah’s Rudy Gobert tested positive for the deadly virus and the league has announced no plan for resuming games or even a timetable for returning to competition.
The league will allow players to conduct individual workouts at team facilities starting Friday in areas where stay-at-home laws allow, the first small step toward resumption. No plan among those floated in US media has included spectators at games, most focusing on a one-site bubble where players might live and play and only once coronavirus tests are available in sufficient numbers to the public and the NBA has enough tests for everyone involved.
The Mandalay Bay resort, with 4,700 rooms available over three connected hotels, would be the central hub of the MGM Vegas plan. An enclosed walkway would connect the Luxor, where caterers and housekeepers would reside.
The Las Vegas Aces of the Women’s NBA play at Mandalay Bay. In such a plan, players are expected to need a training camp of more than three weeks to prepare for games, which could include the final month of the regular season and two months of playoff contests.
Meanwhile, the NBA will have to decide who is considered essential game staff should play resume amid the coronavirus pandemic, ESPN reported. One of the concerns weighing on NBA teams is the age of people typically deemed essential to a team, such as a member of the coaching staff or a general manager, or whether they have a preexisting medical condition.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified people 65 or older or people of any age with an underlying medical condition as being more susceptible to COVID-19.
“Based on all the information that we have today, probably people over 60 with preexisting conditions can’t go, for sure, no matter what their titles are,” one unidentified general manager told ESPN. “Whether it’s a father of the star player or whether it’s the general manager of the team, they can’t go there.” Currently, there are six NBA head coaches who are 60 and older, with three 65 and older: Alvin Gentry, New Orleans Pelicans, 65; Mike D’Antoni, Houston Rockets, 68; and Gregg Popovich, San Antonio Spurs, 71.
Who will be determined essential will lead to tough choices and the potential for hurt feelings, but general managers told ESPN medical staff likely won’t be cut. “The one area you don’t want to skimp on is the medical. The coaching part of it, you could probably get by with a head coach, that’s it,” one general manager said.
As of Saturday, nearly 1.1 million people in the United States had been diagnosed with the coronavirus, with 64,283 deaths. — Agencies