Despite the fact that players have expressed a handful of concerns about the NBA’s restart plan over the last week or two, ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne and Adrian Wojnarowski have found no indications that the NBA’s return is in jeopardy.
According to Shelburne and Wojnarowski, there will probably be some players who opt not to suit up when the season resumes in Orlando, but ESPN’s sources don’t believe that a “significant” amount of players are prepared to sit out.
Although some players have concerns related to COVID-19 and/or the restrictive nature of the Orlando plan, much of the discussion recently has focused on how resuming the season may or may not divert attention away from the Black Lives Matter movement and other social justice causes. NBPA executive director Michele Roberts tells ESPN that players spent much of the weekend discussing how they can use their “obvious influence” to best highlight those causes.
“It’s not a question of play or not play,” Roberts said. “It’s a question of, does playing again harm a movement that we absolutely, unequivocally embrace? And then whether our play can, in fact, highlight, encourage and enhance this movement? That’s what they’re talking about. They’re not fighting about it; they’re talking about it.”
As Shelburne and Woj detail, Roberts – in her conversations with players – has pointed to John Carlos’ and Tommie Smith’s raised fists on the podium at the 1968 Summer Olympics as one memorable example of how athletes used their platform at a sporting event to make a powerful statement.
With the NBA’s plan to resume and complete the 2019/20 season expected to move forward, the league is preparing this week to release a pair of key documents to teams, according to Shelburne and Wojnarowski.
One of those documents will outline the changes to the Collective Bargaining Agreement made necessary by the changes to the NBA calendar, while the other will be a 125-page manual detailing the many health and safety protocols for the return-to-play plan this summer.
Those two documents will represent major steps forward, though there will still be other issues to sort out in the coming weeks, including possible insurance protections for players in Orlando and an offseason plan for the eight clubs left out of the 22-team restart.
I do not understand why they want to play the regular season even with only a few teams. Just go with a playoff best of 5 series. Championship series 7 games. Get it over as soon as possible instead of dragging it until end of fall.
a few teams? over half the teams are going. only 8 teams that had no chance at the playoffs . it very easy to understand why they are playing. so teams have warm up games to work back into game shape . the biggest reason to give teams that had a chance at a playoff spot a chance.
Another Trade Rumors notification that scares the crap out of me lol.
If Kyrie and Dwight Howard were the no playing “leaders” it was doomed to fail. Let’s see what the real stars have to say. Kyrie just wants to seem important with his flat Earth logic.
lets not forget the blazer voted no to playing
The weak point of the restart is the local, non-bubbled employees and how the risk that they bring will be mitigated. The biggest problem is that the NBA chose the wrong state. FLA is experiencing on upsurge in cases due to poor political leadership so they are jeopardizing the plan. I expect more players to become hesitant if the Covid situation in Florida worsens.
Florida is currently better than more than half the rest of the states in the union in total virus deaths per capita. And they haven’t had as many protests with thousands gathered together. They’ve increased testing which accounts for the case number rise
If individual players don’t want to play because of the virus (take their word for it), then they shouldn’t have to. This is always everyone’s right (not to work and/or just stay home) for any reason, but here, with a health concern, teams should not have the right to declare a breach of contract. If not enough players show up to have a representative post-season, then cancel the balance of the year. Otherwise, play it out with those who want to play. If the former, the players who don’t play can explain it to their teammates. Presumably their decision will be more respected the earlier that they make it. I don’t think many fans really care about their largely incoherent reasons why. I know I don’t.