NBA suspends rest of season
Sports world taking drastic action in response to coronavirus outbreak
The escalating world health crisis rocked the sports world Wednesday as the NBA suspended its season when one of its players tested positive for the coronavirus.
The Utah Jazz and the Oklahoma City Thunder were about to begin their game in Oklahoma City when the test results on Utah center Rudy Gobert became known.
The teams were told to return to their locker rooms, and the crowd was told the game was postponed “due to unforeseen circumstances.”
In a statement, the NBA said it was suspending the season “until further notice. The NBA will use this hiatus to determine next steps for moving forward in regard to the coronavirus pandemic.’’
According to ESPN, Gobert was never at the arena, but he was in Oklahoma City and ready to play if he’d tested negative for coronavirus.
Players from teams the Jazz have played within the last 10 days are being told to self-quarantine, ESPN reported.
Those teams are the Cleveland Cavaliers, New York Knicks, Boston Celtics, Detroit Pistons and
Toronto Raptors.
“This is crazy, it can’t be true,” Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said in an interview with ESPN during the fourth quarter of his team’s game in Dallas against the Denver Nuggets. “It’s not within the realm of possibilities. It seemed like more out of a movie than reality.
“I mean, literally, if this thing is just exploding to the point where all of a sudden players and others have had it, you think about your family. You want to really make sure you’re doing this the right way because now it’s much more personal. And you’ve seen what’s happened in other countries, but just the whole idea that it’s come this close and potentially a couple of players have it — just stunning is not the right word. It’s crazy.”
It dwarfed every other stunning announcement on a day full of them, falling like dominoes.
It began with the Golden State Warriors announcing they would play their next two home games behind closed doors. Now they won’t play them at all.
A few hours after the Warriors’ announcement, the NCAA announced that the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments — aka March Madness, starting next week — would be played in empty arenas across the nation. That soon became a best-case scenario.
The Giants and A’s first determined that the Bay Bridge Series, a two-game exhibition that annually signals the end of spring training, would not be played in the Bay Area, if it is played at all. Hours later, the A’s announced that their season opening homestand March 26-April 1 was in doubt. In fact, every game of every sport is in doubt.
“Following the City of Oakland and Alameda County’s announcement today prohibiting public
“This is much bigger than the NBA . ... So that’s really what’s most important. I mean, I walked over to my wife, it’s like, ‘Do we send our kids to school tomorrow? Is it that big?’ Again, it’s like out of a movie. It’s not even real.”
— Mark Cuban
gatherings of 1,000 people or more through the end of March, the Oakland A’s are working with Major League Baseball on alternative plans for our games that will be impacted at the Oakland Coliseum,” the team said in a statement.
The San Jose Earthquakes postponed their March 21 match against Sporting KC. The San Jose Sharks announced their three home games in March will be closed to the public. Stanford University closed its doors on all campus sporting events through May 15. Ordinarily, that would have ended its hopes of hosting the first two games of a women’s basketball regional next week. But these are not ordinary times.
The Pac-12 men’s basketball tournament in Las Vegas, which opened Wednesday, will be fan-free starting today.
The Ivy League did away with its conference tournaments entirely.
Internationally, the figure skating World Championships, scheduled Monday through March 22 in Montreal, were canceled.
Also, a popular Italian soccer team, Juventus, announced that defender Daniele Rugani tested positive for coronavirus but currently is asymptomatic. A team statement said the player and those who have had contact with him were put in isolation as required by Italian law.
All sports have been halted in Italy, where more than 10,000 cases of coronavirus have been reported.
Like the Sharks, the Warriors had their hand forced after declining to act on requests to take action. Wednesday the Warriors got orders in the form of San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s two-week ban on events of more than 1,000 people.
“Public health must be first priority,” San Francisco Supervisor Matt Haney wrote on Twitter.
Now it is, across the NBA and soon well beyond that.
“This is much bigger than the NBA,” Cuban said. “When we talk about the getting the season back on track, that means all of this got worked out, right? That maybe we understand more about it and it will be less of an issue for the entire country, the entire world. So that’s really what’s most important. I mean, I walked over to my wife, it’s like, ‘Do we send our kids to school tomorrow? Is it that big?’ Again, it’s like out of a movie. It’s not even real.”
Before the Gobert — who was tested because he had flu-like symptoms — news hit, it appeared as if the entire league would be falling in line with the Warriors, playing games in private until further notice. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the NBA Board of Governors had decided to go that way, rather than suspending the season, and Commissioner Adam Silver was expected to enact that plan today.
The development with Gobert changed everything and made everything else that had come down Wednesday seem small.
The Giants and the A’s were scheduled to play each other March 23-24 — once in San Francisco, once in Oakland — but now it appears they will extend their stay in Arizona and play the games there, if they play them at all.
The Giants’ March 22 game at Sacramento, against their Triple-A farm team, is canceled.
The Giants would likely go directly from Arizona to Los Angeles for the regular-season opener against the Dodgers on March 26. If there is a season. The A’s are scheduled to open at home against the Minnesota Twins that day.
Until Gobert, the biggest blow was to college basketball. Sunday the 68-team field for the men’s tournament will be announced. Monday will be the women’s turn.
And then three weeks of games in empty gyms. March Madness indeed.
All other collegiate winter sports championships also will be closed.
“While I understand how disappointing this is for all fans of our sports, my decision is based on the current understanding of how COVID-19 is progressing in the United States,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said in a statement. “We recognize the opportunity to compete in an NCAA national championship is an experience of a lifetime for the students and their families. Today, we will move forward and conduct championships consistent with the current information and will continue to monitor and make adjustments as needed.”