NBA opts to delay lottery
It was April 6, when NBA commissioner Adam Silver declared the league wouldn’t announce any decisions regarding the suspended season until at least May 1. On May 1, Silver is no closer to knowing whether play will resume amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
What the league did announce on Friday, though, was the indefinite postponement of the NBA draft lottery and its combine, slated for this later month in Chicago. The June 25 draft is still on the schedule as of this point.
If the lottery is held, the Knicks own a 62.7 percent chance of picking between No. 6 and No. 9.
According to ESPN, the NBA and its board of governors also continued discussions on Friday about delaying the start of the 2020-21 season until December which is gaining support from ownership.
Getting all the key players to come to restart agreements has been a challenge for the NBA and the other major sports.
“It’s hard to lead by consensus in a crisis,” one general manager told ESPN.com.
Though multiple executives remain optimistic the 2019-20 season will be completed — including Dallas owner Mark Cuban and Milwaukee owner Marc Lasry — the league is still unsure where the games would be held. Las Vegas remains a candidate to host the action — serving as a bubble city, benefitting from the NBA Summer League facilities, numerous hotels and restaurants — with the MGM Grand pitching its services to the NBA and WNBA across three adjacent hotels, according to ESPN.com. Like MLB, the NBA is also considering playing in multiple cities, such as Orlando, where momentum has increased to isolate and play at the private Walt Disney World Resort, which holds 12 basketball courts. Team practice facilities reportedly remain a possibility, too.
While any scenario would require personnel beyond players, coaches and referees, sources told ESPN that robotic cameras could be utilized and broadcasters could work from remote locations, limiting essential personnel to no more than 35 people at the site. However, players appear unwilling to quarantine without family members present.
“There are so many layers that would have to come into play for [a bubble] to even happen,” Chris Paul, president of the National Basketball Players Association, said last week. “We would have to know exactly what that would look like. There’s a lot of hypotheticals out there.”