Hiatus Notes: Staying In Shape, Force Majeure, More

If the NBA does attempt to resume its 2019/20 season this summer, the amount of time players will get to get game-ready could be a key point of contention, especially since they’ll have to adjust to the intensity of the postseason almost immediately upon resumption.

During a recent appearance on the Wizards’ Off The Bench podcast, Dr. Daniel Medina, the Wizards‘ chief of athletic care and performance, addressed that issue. As Medina explained, it’s a challenge to keep players in peak physical condition when a potential return date has yet to be set. However, he acknowledged that they’re dealing with “young, healthy athletes,” and expressed optimism that they may only need a couple weeks to prepare.

“As every basketball fan knows, the biggest challenge, at this point when you stop, is tendon issues and chronic joint issues,” Medina said. “In that sense, the program that we have put together, and a lot of credit to our PTs, let’s have our guys not lose much muscle, have those tendons ready to be uploaded and if we’re given two or three weeks to ramp up, we’ll be ready to do it.”

Here’s more on the NBA’s hiatus and the issues that come along with it:

• Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report posits that reducing the number of teams required to resume the season from 30 to 16 – essentially just the playoff clubs – would give the NBA a more realistic chance to complete the 2019/20 campaign in a single city.
• If the NBA triggers the force majeure clause in the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement and requires players to give back a portion of their salaries, that won’t apply to waived players with guaranteed contracts or players on two-way deals. According to Stefan Bondy of The New York Daily News (Twitter link), the NBPA clarified that point to agents in a conference call this week.
• David Aldridge of The Athletic takes an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look back at the night of March 11 in Oklahoma City, when the NBA had to make a quick decision not just to postpone the Jazz/Thunder game that was about to tip off, but also to suspend the entire season.