Cautious optimism after first wave of NBA testing

NBA commissioner Adam Silver knows that the coronavirus may force him to cancel the season but is encouraged by early testing results.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver admitted there is a threshold for cancelling the season. The number of positive tests this week isn’t it.

On Thursday, the NBA announced that 25 of 351 players have tested positive for the coronavirus. In addition, testing of 844 team staff members found just 10 positive results.

The positivity rate of less than three per cent is well below the 7.1 per cent rolling seven-day national average and good news for a league that plans to bring the players, coaches and staff of 22 teams to a “bubble” environment in Orlando, Florida next week.

Earlier this week, Brooklyn, Denver and New Orleans reportedly closed their practice facilities due to positive tests, while cases in Florida have dramatically spiked recently. Silver knows the virus can end the NBA’s bold plan.

“(It’s) never ‘full steam no matter what’,” he said in an interview with Time magazine.

“One thing we’re learning about this virus is that much is unpredictable.”

Silver does not know what that threshold is, however. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Certainly, if we have a lot of cases, we’re going to stop. You cannot run from this virus. I am absolutely convinced that it will be safer on this campus than off this campus, because there aren’t many other situations I’m aware of where there’s mass testing of asymptomatic employees.

“So in some ways this is maybe a model for how other industries ultimately open.” —