Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
It’s now or January
Next season likely won’t start until 2021, Silver says
With the 2019-20 NBA season currently concluding at a point when teams traditionally would be preparing to arrive to training camps, Commissioner Adam Silver said Tuesday that he does not anticipate next season starting before January.
“We said a week ago or so that the earliest we would start is Christmas of this year. But the more I’m learning even listening to Dr. Fauci this morning, I continue to believe that we’re going to be better off getting into January,” Silver said in an interview with Citizen by CNN.
“The goal for us next season is to play a standard season … 82-game season and playoffs. And further, the goal would be to play games in home arenas in front of fans, but there’s still a lot that we need to learn in terms of rapid testing for example.”
Silver said it will come down to developments with the novel coronavirus pandemic, with COVID-19 forcing the league into its current quarantine setting at Disney World.
“There’s a lot of new information out there in the marketplace that we’re looking to absorb,” Silver said. “But the goal is to play a standard season.”
The Miami Heat already have begun selling seasonticket packages for next season, a season, based on a three-month delay from a typical start, that would not open the playoffs until July.
Such timing could preclude the NBA from sending players to the rescheduled 2021 Tokyo Olympics, which tentatively are scheduled to open July 23.
“I think it would be tough for us to make a decision in January based on the Olympics happening on schedule, when that’s so unclear,” Silver said. “I just add, there are a lot of great U.S. players and we may be up against the scenario where the top 15 NBA players aren’t competing in the Olympics, but other great American players are competing.
“And, again, obviously, there are many NBA players who participate in the Olympics for other countries; that’s something we’re going to have to work through.”
Heat guard Goran Dragic, who has retired from international competition after years with the Slovenian national team, said players would have adjust, just as they have for the delayed conclusion to this season.
“It’s not going to be anything different,” he said after the Heat’s Tuesday practice at Disney World, in advance of Wednesday’s 8:30 p.m. Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Boston Celtics. “Even when it’s the offseason, I still work, I still maintain my body, and it’s going to be the same this time. If the season started in January or February, I’ll try to get home and work out and be ready for next season.”
For starters
Forward Jimmy Butler said Tuesday the Heat’s shaky starts and early double-digit deficits have to stop.
“I don’t think we started off anywhere near where we’re capable of,” he said. “I think we dig ourselves a hole and try to fight back out of it. I think going into this next one, it’s up to the starting five to come out with a great start.”
He said the uneven showings by the Heat bench have been a result.
“They see us being lazy on both ends of the floor. They kind of follow our suit,” he said. “It’s not on them.” ...
The Celtics announced that rookie guard Romeo Langford, who was injured in Game 2, underwent surgery Tuesday to repair a ligament in his right wrist and it out for the remainder of the season. …
Heat center Bam Adebayo is holding an online back-to-school drive through his Bam Books and Brotherhood Foundation.