In the wake of Rudy Gobert‘s positive coronavirus test, the NBA has announced that its season will be suspended indefinitely, as we detailed earlier tonight.
While it remains to be seen exactly how long that suspension will last, one person who spoke to Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press said the NBA expects the league to be shut down for at least two weeks. That source cautioned that the situation is very fluid.
As Dan Feldman of NBC Sports passes along, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski said in a TV appearance tonight that there’s a feeling around the NBA that the season will eventually be resumed. It’s “clearly going to be a truncated schedule” though, according to Woj.
No games will take place while the suspension is ongoing, but Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said tonight that the NBA has told teams they can continue to practice, per Tim MacMahon of ESPN (Twitter link). Players have been told they shouldn’t have any visitors from out of town, MacMahon adds.
Here’s more on how the coronavirus situation has shaken up the NBA:
- After Gobert was tested for COVID-19 on Wednesday, Jazz and Thunder officials worked together to make sure no Oklahoma City players had any contact or exposure to Utah players, tweets Wojnarowski. According to ESPN’s Royce Young (Twitter links), Thunder players were tested tonight for fever, but not for the coronavirus. Jazz players are still expected to be tested tonight, however — the team is currently quarantined in OKC, per Woj (Twitter link).
- According to reports from Steve Bulpett of The Boston Herald (Twitter link) and ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, players from teams that have played the Jazz in the last 10 days have been advised to self-quarantine. That list of clubs includes the Cavaliers, Knicks, Celtics, Pistons, and Raptors.
- Knicks players aren’t being tested yet, according to Steve Popper of Newsday (Twitter link). Blake Murphy of The Athletic tweets that Raptors players are getting tested. Cavaliers coaches and players haven’t yet heard about potential testing, writes Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com.
I’ll be stunned if this season restarts. My guess is the next nba game will be in mid Oct.
The Chinese league suspended play and getting ready to resume their schedule. Can’t see where they’re light years ahead of us in dealing with this phenomenon. I expect the nba to resume somewhere around April 2 – give or take…
The Chinese are literally building entire new hospitals in 10 days to treat this. They may not be light years ahead but I’d argue they’re doing a hell of a job trying to contain this.
They are ahead of us, unfortunately. Helps to have a police state. Freedom has costs, and some of them are unpleasant.
Lol @ the USA not being a police state. Also @ freedom having costs considering its not like everyone is free to get proper health care there.
Imagine thinking the US was a police state
Largest prison population on the planet. Interpret that however you wish. Police state or not.
+1. I’m assuming no one on this thread is African American. Yes. Police state.
If you had ever actually been in a police state, you would know the difference. USA is not even close, despite whatever objections you may have, and yeah, health care is actually easier to obtain in most other countries, especially for those on the lowest economic rungs or who are not wage salary employees.
Man I can’t see how China is resuming it’s schedule. Seems nearly wreckless. Every culture is a psychological police state for the dumb or best people.
They are light years ahead of us.
We still aren’t even testing people who are sick or people who are being exposed. The trajectory of infections in this country is beginning an exponential rise in the while it’s being reduced in China because they quarantined everyone and are testing people to make sure there aren’t contagious people running around infecting everyone.
It has little to do with a police state and everything to do with testing.
My point is that in the US we prioritize “freedom”; so far we haven’t declared martial law, although that would stop spread of the virus most quickly. In China, whatever the government says goes.
What about teams that have subsequently played the Cavaliers, Knicks, Celtics, Pistons, and Raptors? They are all exposed as well, and the teams those teams played after playing the Cavaliers, Knicks, Celtics, Pistons, and Raptors.
This is not a geometric progression, it is logarithmic, likely includes half or more of the NBA.
This will not be over in 2 weeks, it will take a bit more than that to open arenas again, as they cannot start again until cases in every NBA city are in decline.
Lucky if playoffs happen at all this year. And do not expect baseball soon.
I totally agree, I think it does resume but not in 14 days
They can restart without fans as soon as players have been quarantined long enough to be sure none of them are sick.
About resumption… We can still barely test anyone. The scale of infection cannot be known.
If anything, the playoffs may resume, possibly in a 1-game series tournament. Be nice if there was a champion.
The Chinese “have a handle on it” only via draconian measures. I doubt America can duplicate that.
Far too late.
We’re two weeks from having the hospitals overrun.
By December 31, they were treating dozens of cases in China. They had an advantage because they had a definite starting point to try and contain it, but just now new cases are starting to decline. Two and a half months and it’s far from over there.
In North America, people have been traveling in and out during this time, and cases are popping up all over. A person can spread the disease up to 4 days before symptoms occur.It’s not going to be that easy to control, and given China’s timeline, 3 to 6 months would be reasonable.
Let the panic keep spreading, just been to the shop can’t find dry pasta, toilet roll, etc… People are panicking like is the end of the world