Silver: NBA may return to normal next year
The NBA is expecting arenas to be filled again next season and a return to its normal calendar, Commissioner Adam Silver said Saturday, while cautioning again that every plan is contingent on continued progress in the ongoing fight against the coronavirus.
There are no plans for the league to travel overseas next season for exhibitions or regularseason games, Silver said, meaning recent preseason trips to foreign markets such as China, Japan or India won’t be repeated until 2022 at the earliest.
But otherwise, things may largely appear back to normal — with the NBA eyeing a return to the 82-game schedule, starting in October and ending in June.
“I’m fairly optimistic, at this point, that we will be able to start on time,” Silver said from Atlanta, in his annual news conference that precedes the AllStar Game. “Roughly half our teams have fans in their arenas right now and, if vaccines continue on the pace they are and they continue to be as effective as they have been against the virus and its variants, we’re hopeful that we’ll have relatively full arenas next season as well.”
The league had 171 games canceled last season because of the pandemic — one of the reasons for revenue projections being missed by about $1.5 billion — and this season will be at least 150 games below the usual total, with more significant financial losses certain.
Baseball
YANKEES’ BOONE BACK ON BENCH
New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone returned to the
dugout three days after surgery to have a pacemaker inserted.
“It felt good just to be at the ballfield again, competing with the guys,” he said after managing New York’s 3-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Boone, who turns 48 in a few days, left the club Wednesday to get the pacemaker at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa, Florida. He returned to camp after clearing COVID-19 protocols and said he feels great — especially so when he watched ace Gerrit Cole cruise through a simulated game at the team’s spring training facility in Tampa.
Boone — who says his only restriction is he can’t raise his left hand over his head for about a month — then joined the team in nearby Bradenton for a rain-delayed exhibition
game against the Pirates.
Golf
WESTWOOD HAS CAREERLOW >> Lee Westwood made a pair of 30-foot putts over the final three holes, one for eagle and the other a closing birdie, for a 7-under 65 that gave England’s ageless wonder a one-shot lead in the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
Westwood turns 48 next month and is feeling younger by the years, coming off a third European Tour title and still easily among the top 50 in the world.
Now he goes up against U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau, whose 68 included a birdie on the par-5 sixth hole in which he cut off so much of the water he had only 70 yards for his second shot on the 531-yard hole.
Corey Conners of Canada, who started with a one-shot lead, could only manage a 71 on a cool, breezy day at Bay Hill with
only a few drops of rain. He also was one shot behind. KUPCHO EAGLES 18TH TO
CUT ERNST’S LPGA TOUR LEAD >> Jennifer Kupcho made a 12-foot eagle putt on the final hole to cut Austin Ernst’s lead to a stroke in the LPGA Tour’s Drive On Championship.
Kupcho shot a 2-under 70 at Golden Ocala, setting up the eagle with a fairway wood that just cleared the rocks and water fronting the green on the par-5 18th.
Ernst parred the last six holes in a 69. The two-time LPGA Tour winner was at 13-under 203.
Skiing
SHIFFRIN CLAIMS 45TH WORLD CUP SLALOM VICTORY >> Mikaela Shiffrin denied her Slovakian rival Petra Vlhova a home victory, winning the first World Cup slalom following the world championships.
Shiffrin trailed first-run leader Vlhova by 0.27 seconds on a hill where the Slovakian regularly trains.
But the American had a blistering final run to win the race by 0.34 as the pair continued its dominance in the discipline.
They combined have won 31 of the 32 World Cup slaloms held since January 2017, a streak interrupted only once by Switzerland’s Michelle Gisin.
Swimming
FORMER OLYMPIC GREAT FRANKLIN IS GOING TO BE A MOM >> Missy Franklin is going to be a mom. The Olympic swimming great announced on social media that she’s expecting her first child in August.
Franklin, who is married to former University of Texas swimmer Hayes Johnson, posted a photo of her and Johnson holding an ultrasound picture.
The 25-year-old Franklin became one of the sport’s biggest stars when she captured four gold medals and a bronze as a high-schooler at the 2012 London Olympics.