Mark Cuban Hopeful Season Will Eventually Resume

Appearing this morning on ESPN’s Get Up (video link), Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said that the NBA remains hopeful that the 2019/20 season can resume at some point, rather than being cancelled altogether.

“Hopefully, this virus runs its course over the next 60 days or so, and at that point we can start making decisions about does the NBA play games, what our schedule looks like, how we would progress from there,” Cuban said, noting that the situation is fluid.

Asked by ESPN’s Rachel Nichols whether his speculative 60-day timeline meant that the league would be prepared to have the playoffs end in August rather than June, Cuban replied, “Absolutely.” However, he cautioned that the NBA may not pick up right where it left off by playing its full schedule.

I can easily see us playing the last seven-to-10 games of the regular season to get everybody back on course and then going right into the playoffs and going into July, if not August,” he said.

One team executive who spoke to Howard Beck of Bleacher Report put the odds of the season resuming at 90%, but didn’t have an estimate for when that might happen. Another team official speculated to Beck that the league could resume play in mid-April and go “straight to the playoffs.”

While the speculation from Cuban and other team officials may reflect discussions and brainstorming sessions the NBA has had with its owners and executives, it’s far too early to draw any concrete conclusions about the plan going forward. The league will have to be patient and see how the coronavirus situation plays out around the country in the coming days and weeks.

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