National Basketball Association (NBA) commissioner Adam Silver finds himself almost constantly looking at financial numbers and projections and like the rest of the world, which is dealing with the seismic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, he still is not sure how bad things will get.
Silver said on Saturday that the league is considering all options — best-case, worst-case and countless ideas in between — as it tries to come to grips with this new normal.
However, definitive answers on any front are in short supply.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“It’s too soon to tell what the economic impact will be,” Silver said. “We’ve been analyzing multiple scenarios on a daily if not hourly basis and we’ll continue to review the financial implications.”
“Obviously, it’s not a pretty picture, but everyone, regardless of what industry they work in, is in the same boat,” he said.
Saturday marked the 10th full day of the NBA’s shutdown, a stoppage that has cost the league 75 games and counting so far, a total that will reach triple digits on Wednesday and will eventually get to 259 on April 15 — the day the regular season was supposed to end.
Photo: AFP
Play is not going to resume by then. The financial losses will be massive and will obviously just keep growing if this season cannot resume or if next season is affected.
“Adam is obviously cautious, cautiously optimistic,” Cleveland forward Kevin Love said earlier last week. “We don’t know what the future holds but the NBA has been through a lot, we’ve seen a lot and I think we’ll be incredibly resilient. It just might take time.”
Players who are due to get their next paycheck on Wednesday next week have been told that they will get them. Whether those players will get their April 15 check is in some question. The league can exercise a clause in the collective bargaining agreement that allows it to take back 1.08 percent of each player’s salary for each game missed in certain times — like war, or in this case, a pandemic.
That clause has not been exercised yet as, officially anyway, no game has been canceled.
“We’re exploring all options to resume our season if and when it is safe to do so,” Silver said. “Nothing is off the table.”
Besides, there are other bridges to cross first.
The NBA — which was the first major US pro league to say it would play games without fans and the first league to suspend its season once All-Star center Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz tested positive for the coronavirus — has been extremely vocal in trying to get its massive fan base to take social distancing and other preventative measures seriously.
“Our focus right now is doing all that we can to support, engage and educate the general public in response to this pandemic,” Silver said. “We are also making sure that we are prepared to resume the season if and when it becomes safe for all concerned.”
The league has asked teams for building availability dates through the end of August, an indicator that this season — if it resumes — might stretch deep into the summer.
So far, there are 14 people within the NBA community, including at least 10 players, known to have tested positive for COVID-19. Of those positive tests, seven became known publicly on Thursday.
“Unfortunately, based on everything we know, significantly more positive cases in our league were inevitable,” Silver said. “So, Thursday’s results did not come as a huge surprise and just like everyone else, we’re just trying to take each day as it comes.”
The virus originated in China, where the NBA has offices and about 200 employees.
What workers in China went through helped the league quickly grasp some sort of understanding of its severity.
Silver made the decision to shut down the league before any public health experts advised the NBA to take that step.
“We’ve learned a lot from our China office,” Silver said, adding that meetings have been of the virtual variety there for several weeks now.
NO HARD FEELINGS: Taiwan’s Lin Hsiang-ti and Indonesia’s Dhinda Amartya Pratiwi embraced after fighting to a tense and rare 30-29 final game in their Uber Cup match The Taiwanese men’s team on Wednesday fought back from the brink of elimination to defeat Denmark in Group C and advance to the quarter-finals of the Thomas Cup, while the women’s team were to face South Korea after press time last night in the Uber Cup quarter-finals in Horsens, Denmark. In the first match, Taiwan’s top shuttler Chou Tien-chen faced a familiar opponent in world No. 3 Anders Antonsen. It was their 16th head-to-head matchup, with the Dane taking his fourth victory in a row against former world No. 2 Chou, winning 21-14, 13-21, 21-15 in 1 hour, 22 minutes. The
Marta Kostyuk’s maiden WTA 1000 title in Madrid came on Saturday thanks to her power, poise and a pair of unexpected lucky shorts. The world No. 23 beat eighth-ranked Mirra Andreeva 6-3, 7-5 in under 90 minutes to secure the most prestigious trophy of her career, her third professional singles title and second in less than a month after Rouen. Yet as the 23-year-old Ukrainian posed for photographs at the Caja Magica, it was not just the silverware that caught the eye. Held alongside her team and her two dogs, Kostyuk showed off a piece of black men’s underwear, prompting
Throwing more than US$5 billion at a divisive new tour and walking away after five seasons does not look like good business, but LIV Golf was not all bad news for Saudi Arabia. Oil-funded LIV, which poached top stars and sent golf’s establishment into a tailspin, helped push the conservative kingdom into global view — one of its key aims, experts said. The exit, confirmed on Thursday after weeks of speculation, does not signal a flight of Saudi money from sport, even after the Middle East war that sparked Iranian attacks around the Gulf, they said. “Saudi Arabia is not
Anastasia Potapova on Wednesday turned tennis heartbreak into history by becoming the first lucky loser to reach a WTA 1000 semi-final with her thrilling 6-1, 6-7 (4/7), 6-3 victory over Karolina Pliskova at the Madrid Open, as Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei exited in the women’s doubles quarter-finals. The Russian-born Austrian, who lost in qualifying last week, has capitalized on her unexpected main draw entry and stunned former world No. 1 Pliskova in a roller-coaster clash despite squandering three match points. Potapova’s run has included impressive victories over former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko and world No. 2 Elena Rybakina. Asked if she had thought
RSS