NBA commissioner Adam Silver decided to suspend the NBA season indefinitely when Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19. However, the possibility of playing without fans was already looming around the days prior to this measure.
Ever since that day, 5 NBA players have tested positive and while all of them have already been cleared out, the league is still enforcing a mandatory quarantine in order to prevent the virus from spreading.
Thus, it has become quite unclear when the season is going to be resumed, or even if it will be canceled at all, as there have been conflicting reports about it.
On one hand, President Donald Trump wants all sports to resume their activities as soon as possible and the state of Florida has deemed sports as essential activities. On the other, health authorities think it’s not safe to jump back to the hardwood again.
As a matter of fact, a health expert that talked to USA TODAY isn’t optimistic about fans potentially being able to watch sports, for the time being, claiming the most realistic timeline for them to be cleared to enter arenas is fall 2021:
“Those things will be the last to return. Realistically fall 2021 at the earliest,” the expert claimed.
So, even if Adam Silver, President Trump, and all other commissioners think it’s safe for sports to come back, it’ll likely be with players and team staffs completely isolated.
Also, it’s unlikely that games will take place in arenas as per usual, as it would make more sense to use neutral grounds to prevent players from traveling. Perhaps, they could even use practice facilities instead.
This would be one of the most bizarre ways to end a catastrophe-riddled season and the most unorthodox playoffs we’d have in league history, but at least, we’ll get to hear NBA players go at as if they were playing on their back yards with no fans shouting and making noise.
