Silver Remains Optimistic About Resuming Season
NBA commissioner Adam Silver remains confident the league will restart the season at the end of July despite growing concerns from a faction of players, Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN relays. Silver made his comments during ESPN’s special “Return To Sports” broadcast on Monday evening.
Silver is sensitive and sympathetic to the feeling of some players that the resumption of play could take the focus off social justice reforms. A player coalition led by Nets star Kyrie Irving and Lakers guard Avery Bradley is pursuing a further examination of the league’s plan to restart the season in Orlando.
That group has also raised concerns regarding an increase in positive coronavirus cases in Florida; the restrictive environment in the Orlando Disney bubble, insurance for players regarding potential illnesses; and the risk of injuries during an accelerated finish.
“Listen, it’s not an ideal situation,” Silver said. “We are trying to find a way to our own normalcy in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of essentially a recession or worse with 40 million unemployed, and now with enormous social unrest in the country. And so as we work through these issues, I can understand how some players may feel, that it’s not for them … it may be for family reasons, it may be for health reasons they have, or it may be because they feel — as some players have said very recently — that their time is best spent elsewhere.”
Silver believes the league could heighten awareness and get the social justice message across effectively while getting back in action. It would also be a major financial boost for all parties involved.
“In terms of social justice issues, it’ll be an opportunity for NBA players in the greater community to draw attention to the issues because the world’s attention will be on the NBA in Orlando if we’re able to pull this off. … I think part of it’s going to require a fair amount of listening, something we’ve been doing already,” he said. “But then engaging in very deliberate behavior, together with the players, in terms of how can we use our larger platform, the NBA together with the players, really to effect change.”
Concerns regarding the coronavirus itself and those at greatest risk are also being addressed. The league has sent teams a medical history questionnaire for players, coaches and their traveling party to fill out, Shams Charania of The Athletic tweets. Medical professionals will use that information to determine if members can fully participate in the restart, be restricted from certain activities, or be excused due to pre-existing conditions.
Irving-Led Coalition Details Concerns
A player coalition led by Nets star Kyrie Irving and Lakers guard Avery Bradley is pursuing a further examination of the league’s plan to restart the season in Orlando, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Malika Andrews report.
At the top of the coalition’s wish list is a commitment of resources and methods to move forward an agenda of social justice reforms.
The group also has issues with the resumption of play in Orlando’s Disney complex, including an uptick in positive coronavirus cases in Florida; the restrictive environment in the bubble, insurance for players regarding potential illnesses; and the risk of injuries during an accelerated finish.
After a conference call that included nearly 100 players voicing concerns over the restart plan on Friday, a call engineered by Irving, another conference call that included about 40 individuals was held on Monday.
A statement issued to ESPN from the group read in part:
“Native indigenous African Caribbean men and women entertaining the world, we will continue to use our voices and platforms for positive change and truth. … We are combating the issues that matter most: We will not accept the racial injustices that continue to be ignored in our communities. We will not be kept in the dark when it comes to our health and well-being. And we will not ignore the financial motivations/expectations that have prevented us historically from making sound decisions.”
Irving, a VP in the Players’ Association, was a part of the union’s ratification vote on June 5 for the resumption of play. He’s out for the season after undergoing shoulder surgery.
The NBA and NBPA are working on solutions in order to get as many players as possible to rejoin the 22 teams involved the restart plan this month, the ESPN duo adds.
NBA To Prorate Bonus, Incentive Criteria Using March 11 As End Of Season
A number of players with performance incentives and bonus clauses in their contracts didn’t get the opportunity to earn those bonuses in 2019/20 due to the suspension of the NBA season and the league’s subsequent hiatus.
However, according to Ramona Shelburne and Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the NBA and NBPA have reached an agreement on how to handle performance incentives in ’19/20. The criteria for those bonuses will be prorated, using March 11 as the end of the regular season, so stats accumulated during the eight “seeding games” this summer won’t count toward those incentives.
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For instance, Tyus Jones‘ contract with the Grizzlies includes an $858K bonus in the event that Memphis wins 33 games. Prior to the hiatus, the Grizzlies had 32 victories. Rather than needing the Grizzlies win one more game when play resumes, Jones will already be assured of his bonus, since a 32-33 record prorated over a full 82-game season would work out to 40 wins.
Similarly, Raptors guard Kyle Lowry has a series of bonuses related to his All-Star berth and his team’s postseason success that require him to play at least 65 games. When the season went on hiatus, Lowry had appeared in 52 of Toronto’s 64 games. Prorated over an 82-game season, that would work out to approximately 67 of 82 games, so Lowry will be considered to have met that 65-game threshold. He’ll receive his $200K All-Star bonus and could earn up to another $1.5MM, depending on how far the Raptors advance in the playoffs.
ESPN’s Bobby Marks broke down a number of these bonuses and incentives in an earlier Insider-only story. Another important one, noted by Shelburne and Wojnarowski, affects Sixers center Joel Embiid.
The final three years of Embiid’s maximum-salary contract, through 2022/23, had previously only been conditionally guaranteed, with the 76ers retaining the ability to gain salary relief if the veteran center suffered a career-threatening injury related to his back or feet. In order to fully guarantee those salaries, Embiid had to log 1,650 minutes this season.
When the season was suspended, Embiid was only at 1,329 minutes played. However, Philadelphia had only played 65 of 82 games. Prorated over a full season, Embiid’s average number of minutes per Sixers game (approximately 20.45) would work out to 1,677, surpassing the 1,650-minute threshold and ensuring his upcoming salaries are fully guaranteed.
Players whose bonuses and incentives rely on a percentage are unaffected by proration. For example, Mavericks forward Maxi Kleber would receive a $75K bonus for an 80% free-throw rate and another $150K for a 40% three-point average. His percentages are currently 86.3% and 37.4%, respectively, so he’ll receive the first bonus — but not the second. The same would have been true if he had finished at 80.1% and 39.9%.
NBA’s Return Not Believed To Be In Jeopardy
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.
Thunder’s Weaver Among Favorites For Pistons’ GM Job
Thunder executive Troy Weaver has emerged as the frontrunner for the Pistons‘ general manager opening, according to Marc Stein of The New York Times (via Twitter). Stein reports that the Pistons are “actively working” to complete a deal with Weaver, while Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports tweets that both sides want to make it happen.
Weaver, who has been with the Thunder for more than a decade following a stint with the Jazz, holds the title of vice president of basketball operations after previously serving as the team’s VP/assistant GM. He’s Sam Presti‘s top lieutenant in Oklahoma City and has been a candidate for other top basketball operations jobs around the NBA in recent years.
Weaver was reportedly in the running for the Wizards’ general manager opening a year ago before the team decided to remain in-house, promoting Tommy Sheppard. Weaver also received interest from the Bulls this spring, but reportedly turned down a second interview because he had heard Chicago was zeroing in on Arturas Karnisovas.
We heard way back in May of 2018 that the Pistons were interested in pursuing Weaver, though nothing came of it at the time — the club instead hired Ed Stefanski as a senior advisor, making him the de facto head of basketball operations. Now, Weaver may be on track to work alongside Stefanski in Detroit’s front office, and could even eventually supplant him if Stefanski shifts to a background role, as has been speculated.
However, no deal is done yet, and ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski suggests (via Twitter) that there are a couple other executives who are also considered serious candidates for the Pistons’ job. Wojnarowski identifies Clippers assistant GM Mark Hughes and Nets assistant GM Jeff Peterson as contenders for the GM vacancy, adding that conversations between the Pistons and their top candidates will continue this week.
Hughes, who was a candidate this spring for the Bulls’ GM job that was eventually filled by Marc Eversley, has been with the Clippers since 2017, having previously served as the Knicks’ director of player personnel. Peterson was an assistant GM for several years in Atlanta before being hired away from the Hawks by Brooklyn last May.
In light of the multiple reports suggesting that the Pistons would make it a priority to conduct a diverse GM search, it’s worth noting that Weaver, Hughes, and Peterson are all black.
Michele Roberts: “A Player Is Going To Test Positive”
Michele Roberts, executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, admits there’s no way to fully protect players from COVID-19 while they’re in Orlando, writes Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe. Roberts understands that players are entering a risky situation, but said the only alternative to resuming the season under these conditions was to wait for a vaccine and possibly sit out two years.
“That’s the only realistic mind-set you can have going into this. A player is going to test positive,” she said. “It’s not any more of this ‘if’, it’s ‘when’ and what can I do to mitigate against the ‘when.’ When it happens, if I’m not successful, what treatment is available to me, what are my chances of being really, really sick, and how are you detecting the presence of an infection? Honestly, I don’t think this is any different than what any American has to come to grips with.”
Roberts emphasized that no player is being forced to participate in Orlando and there will be no repercussions other than loss of salary. An increasing number of players are objecting to the restart plan and the restrictive nature of the bubble environment.
“I don’t believe any player would say this was forced upon them, it’s not,” Roberts said. “Not a single player has to play. This is not involuntary servitude. I don’t have to work. They don’t have to work. But it’s of course a mitigation of risk with the players. On this health and safety protocol, I’m satisfied that it can’t be any better than this. But I’m candid that it’s not bulletproof.”
Roberts addresses several other topics in the interview:
Players have become more knowledgeable about the virus:
“At the very beginning when we were being told that this was a disease that people like me [middle-aged] had to worry about, it was more of an annoyance for the players, except for those who had family members my age. But it was not something they thought was going to have this kind of an impact on their lives or their livelihood. As time went on and the seriousness was revealed there were times when players were very concerned about it, especially when it became clear it was not confined to folks over 60. I got really serious questions. ‘Is this something I need to be worried about? Can it kill me? Can it impact my ability to continue to play basketball?'”
She believes most players support resuming the season:
“I think the players are where they want to be. They want to give it a shot and if it doesn’t work, well, we tried. Hopefully nothing catastrophic will happen and we can just figure out Plan B. If the worst would happen and it would spread, we shut it down. This is the virus. I’m going to be disheartened, but I’m not going to be surprised because there’s no scientific or medical ability to protect against it. The players know it. The teams know it. We’re doing absolutely everything we can to mitigate it. If I didn’t think we were, that the league was half-stepping, then I would recommend with every ounce of my being that our players not even think about playing again. But that’s thankfully not the case.”
The union hasn’t endorsed Dec. 1 as the start date for the 2020/21 season:
“Dec. 1 is not an attractive option. Those are tough questions that have to be resolved. How do we address the revenue challenges this virus has created and will create next season? I don’t know when they’re going to have fans back in the arena. I don’t think we’re going to have them in October. There are a number of factors that will impact when the season will begin. I don’t know if we’re going to have a second spike. What’s the virus going to look like? And if you’re going to talk about a compressed season, we were able to reduce the amount of back-to-back games, the notion of returning to that and the obvious injury risk that come along with that, is not attractive. But nothing will happen without the players signing off. That’s for sure.”
More Details Emerge From Friday’s Conference Call
We relayed details last night about a conference call regarding player objections to the plan to restart the NBA season in Orlando. More information on that call, which involved in excess of 80 players, has been released by Shams Charania of The Athletic.
Charania confirms that Kyrie Irving was the leader of the effort to make players reconsider their support of finishing the season. He spoke first and offered a direct message to his peers, telling them, “I don’t support going into Orlando. I’m not with the systematic racism and the bull–. … Something smells a little fishy. Whether we want to admit it or not, we are targeted as black men every day we wake up.”
Avery Bradley, who was outspoken throughout the conversation, was the first player to follow Irving’s comments. He encouraged the players to take a stand and to use the opportunity to “play chess, not checkers.” Other prominent names on the call included union president Chris Paul, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard and Donovan Mitchell.
Players have been involved in conversations for the past two weeks, sources tell Charania, expressing concerns about the games in Orlando and the restrictive conditions that are rumored to be part of the bubble environment. The opposition began among “rank-and-file” players, with Irving and Durant providing prominent voices.
Sources offered Charania a few more tidbits from the conference call:
- Anthony emphasized the need for player unity and the importance of conveying a single message. He also urged all 80 players on the call to donate $25K to a cause of their choice.
- CJ McCollum told players they have to be prepared for financial setbacks if they choose not to play and the possibility that owners will nullify the current Collective Bargaining Agreement.
- Howard warned that resuming the season will distract from the social justice issues the country is focused on. He encouraged players to use the moment as a catalyst for change.
- Mitchell talked about players “being behind the 8-ball” by being forced into a competitive environment after being idle for so long. “We’re taking a big injury risk,” he told his fellow players.
- NBPA leadership doesn’t expect fans to be allowed into games at any point during the 2020/21 season, which would result in another huge revenue loss for the league.
Young Stars Want NBA To Provide Insurance For Career-Threatening Injuries
Some of the league’s best young players talked to the National Basketball Players Association on Friday about creating an insurance system financed by the league that would protect them in case of career-threatening injuries when play resumes in Orlando, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Sources tell Wojnarowski that Bam Adebayo, De’Aaron Fox, Kyle Kuzma, Donovan Mitchell and Jayson Tatum were part of a call with NBPA executive director Michele Roberts and senior counsel Ron Klempner. All five players will be eligible for rookie-scale extensions this offseason, and they want the union to negotiate insurance policies with the NBA that would protect their future earnings.
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Players in general believe they’re facing a higher-than-normal risk of serious injury after not being able to play for more than three months. Adebayo, Fox, Kuzma, Mitchell and Tatum are hoping their combined voices will help win protections for players on all 22 teams involved in the restart.
The league has been in talks with the union about providing some form of protection for players who are either injured or suffer severe cases of coronavirus during the games in Orlando, according to sources. Negotiations are continuing on possible alterations to the Collective Bargaining Agreement before play resumes.
Sources estimate to Wojnarowski that policies for players on the brink of a maximum extension could cost up to $500K to protect them through the end of the playoffs. He adds that apart from a career-ending incident, it would be difficult to prove that any injury is directly responsible for a reduction in future earnings.
Dr. Anthony Fauci Supportive Of NBA’s Restart Plan
With tentative dates, protocols and logistics in place, the NBA is further along than a number of other professional sports organizations as it looks to resume its season. The plan also has the support of the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Speaking to Stadium, Fauci said he has reviewed the league’s blueprint to resume play and commended the plan.
“It is really quite creative,” Fauci said. “I think they might very well be quite successful with it. It is to create a situation where it is as safe as possibly can be for the players by creating this bubble.
“Essentially testing everybody, make sure you start with a baseline of everybody being negative and make sure there is no influx into that cohort of individuals.”
Given a spike in coronavirus cases in the state of Florida, along with certain unclear safety measures and the fallout from the civil unrest, the NBA’s potential return has hit a snag this week. However, if everything progresses toward the playing stage, Fauci is in full support.
“It’s something that I think is a sound plan,” he added. “I was pleased to see that the intent was not reckless at all. They really wanted to make sure the safety of the players and those associated with the players was paramount.”
Players’ Conference Call Focuses On Restart Concerns
More than 80 players participated in a conference call on Friday night to address concerns over the NBA’s restart plan, Shams Charania of The Athletic tweets.
Nets guard Kyrie Irving was the leading voice on the call, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. While the NBA has solidified key restart dates, a plan approved by player reps last week, Irving has emerged as the most prominent player with major reservations about resuming the season.
Chris Paul, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony and Donovan Mitchell were among the participants on the call, and numerous players voiced their concerns about finishing the season amid nationwide unrest regarding social injustice and racism, Charania adds.
During the call, one unnamed player texted Wojnarowski regarding some of the issues raised during the call (Twitter link), including playing in the Orlando bubble: “(Kyrie)’s trying to give players a platform to be able to have a discussion — on the bubble, racial equality and unity. … It’s a good call.”
Irving underwent season-ending shoulder surgery in March. His presence in Orlando would only be as an interested observer and to support his Nets teammates.
Irving was an active participant in last week’s call when the reps agreed to the restart plan and only chimed in with mundane questions. Thus, his actions to organize a broader conference call that could change or even halt the restart plan has surprised several of his NBPA colleagues, according to Wojnarowski.
Irving’s stance has pitted him against many of the league’s superstars, most of whom have strongly supported the resumption of the season. Irving seems to be relishing the clash, Wojnarowski adds.