Owners, execs bracing for mid-to-late June as best-case scenario for NBA's return, sources say
reported Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN last night. He noted that the league was projecting three scenarios:
Playing at practice facilities?
To meet the rules about large gatherings, the league is considering games without fans, including at team practice facilities. For the Brooklyn Nets, that would mean the HSS Training Center at Industry City in Sunset Park.
Writes Woj:
Questions raised
It raises questions: even if a small crew is present for NBA broadcasts, wouldn't everyone involved, including broadcast staff and referees, have to be coronavirus-negative, practice social distancing, and be regularly tested?
Also note sports law expert Dan Lust, saying that June is after the owners can cancel season:
On 3/11/20, after the Utah Jazz's Rudy Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus. the National Basketball Association suspended its season, followed by the National Hockey League and other sports leagues. That, argued Daily News columnist Mike Lupica 3/13/20, helped save the world.
Wrote Ethan Strauss of The Athletic the same day, in Before the shutdown, the NBA prioritized profit over prevention:
reported Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN last night. He noted that the league was projecting three scenarios:
the financial costs of shutting down the season, restarting with no fans in the arena, or playing playoff games with fans. Those losses will be reflected in next season's salary cap and the players' share of basketball-related income.A three-month hiatus is as long as the offseason. (He also said the NBA's G League is expected to be shut down completely.)
Playing at practice facilities?
To meet the rules about large gatherings, the league is considering games without fans, including at team practice facilities. For the Brooklyn Nets, that would mean the HSS Training Center at Industry City in Sunset Park.
Writes Woj:
Through it all, NBA commissioner Adam Silver is encouraging his league to be open to experimental ideas in every area -- scheduling format, venues, television -- on how to respond to an unprecedented crisis.That, of course, does not mean work for the Barclays Center staff. (In this Brooklyn Way podcast, starting at about 9:15, an usher tells Anthony Puccio that they earn about $100/game, so the loss of ten games is $1,000.)
Questions raised
It raises questions: even if a small crew is present for NBA broadcasts, wouldn't everyone involved, including broadcast staff and referees, have to be coronavirus-negative, practice social distancing, and be regularly tested?
Also note sports law expert Dan Lust, saying that June is after the owners can cancel season:
Newsday's Greg Logan suggested the season's already gone:A 3-month hiatus means no basketball until 6/11. That’s a full month after the owners’ deadline to cancel the season on May 10th (60 days after the Gobert diagnosis). Have to imagine this makes a cancellation even more likely. Again, below is the relevant Force Majeure language. pic.twitter.com/gz2kDONDJu— Dan Lust, Esq. (@SportsLawLust) March 16, 2020
Tom Ziller, in Good Morning It's Basketball, writes, in Why is the NBA trying to rescue this season?:It's already gone, and they know it. I mean, seriously, even if graph tracking infections levels off, how do you return immediately to mass gatherings within a two or three months. Not happening. https://t.co/qtJyYxJcxk— Greg Logan (@GregLogan1) March 16, 2020
You can’t have a televised NBA game with less than 50 people. Players alone constitute 26-30 people. Even three coaches per team and three officials takes you to about 40. Scorekeepers, floor moppers, trainers, camera crew, announcers. It just doesn’t add up. So you can’t run a game until you’re comfortable holding “gatherings” of that size, even if at that point you’re still not admitting thousands of fans into the building.Assessing the decisions
Something doesn’t add up.
...[re: Canceling the season] It’s not fair. None of this is! But what’s the motivating factor here? Is Adam Silver just doing his due diligence on investigating every avenue by which to preserve his franchisees’ investment and revenue streams? Have people in power within the NBA acknowledged to themselves and perhaps each other that this is a fools’ errand, that in the end cancelling the rest of the season is the right and perhaps only choice?
On 3/11/20, after the Utah Jazz's Rudy Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus. the National Basketball Association suspended its season, followed by the National Hockey League and other sports leagues. That, argued Daily News columnist Mike Lupica 3/13/20, helped save the world.
Wrote Ethan Strauss of The Athletic the same day, in Before the shutdown, the NBA prioritized profit over prevention:
As experts on infectious disease made their warnings, the Warriors slapped up a sign ahead of Tuesday’s game that read, “attending tonight’s game could increase your risk of contracting coronavirus.” The Warriors played two games after that sign went up, an “at your own risk” liability protection that seems more applicable to the danger of a foul ball than of a contagious disease. A foul ball only hurts the fan who gets hit; it doesn’t multiply and smash into people who never showed up to the game. You can fault the Warriors, and I do. You can blame city officials, in San Francisco and elsewhere, for not being explicit about what they wanted from teams. But the ultimate authority for the NBA schedule falls on the league. Commissioner Adam Silver and the owners had the power to stop the games before a local, state, or national authority feels compelled to.
With the NBA’s authority in mind, why were two games played in a full Chase Center, behind a banner that effectively admitted to increased COVID-19 risk?
Comments
Post a Comment