Commissioner Adam Silver said in an interview with TNT broadcaster Ernie Johnson on Monday that a decision on whether to resume the season won’t come until at least May 1, Tim Bontemps of ESPN relays in a string of tweets.
Like millions of fans and everyone connected with the league, Silver said the suspension of play in NBA and other major pro and college sports has left a void in daily life.
“I think we are all realizing how much we miss live sports,” he said.
However, the stark reality of the coronavirus pandemic has made it impossible to know when games will be played again. Playing regular-season games as well as a postseason is still a possibility “in an ideal world.” However, there has been a growing sense of pessimism as the delay drags on with no end in sight.
Even though the league is willing to stretch this season into September to crown a championship, it also has to take into consideration that it doesn’t want negatively impact next season, Silver points out.
Silver is even more concerned about the 55,000 jobs affected by the stoppage of play in the league, including all of its game-day workers. Once it’s considered safe for games to be played, the sports leagues will be “ready to go.”
Cut the cord already.
We all know what’s gonna happen, it’s just brinksmanship at this point.
It can be done with a quarantine.
It will be done! The show must go on!!!
You know what would give the NBA some real headlines? Just for this year, re-open the trade market. Right now the only game in town is the NFL.
Lock the seeding – if they restart playoffs are what they are, draft seeding is what it is.
No warm-up games, just put out some 1 or 2 hour televised intra-squad practices. Each team over the course of 3 weeks televises 1 per week. 48 practices, 48 time slots can be filled. Doesn’t have to be live, you can edit it and filter in your commercials for ad revenue. People watch the junk rookie ball and draft workouts (self included). They have time to iron out wrinkles between now, and say July. If they can do this before the NFL season starts, they will have the market.