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Coronavirus Continues To Impact International Play

March 12th, 2020 at 10:25pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

As the novel coronavirus COVID-19 hits the US, its impact also continues to be felt abroad. The coronavirus first gestated in China, and thus the CBA was the first big league hit with COVID-19. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst took a look at the experiences of select CBA players, including former Magic forward Andrew Nicholson, now with the Loong Lions.

“It’s been frustrating,” Nicholson said, “but no one could have expected this, no one can control it.”

Since our last check-in, several other international leagues have suspended play. Beyond just the EuroLeague, the three other big European basketball competitions (the EuroCup, FIBA Champions League and FIBA Europe Cup) have indefinitely postponed game operations, per Jonathan Givony of ESPN.

Forward Trey Thompkins, a member of one of the top EuroLeague clubs, Real Madrid, recently tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Real Madrid quarantined its basketball and football teams. Thompkins tweeted about his diagnosis. “I’m feeling great and just waiting for the virus to pass at this point,” he said in part.

Givony also notes that the competitions or entire leagues in Italy, France, Ukraine, Germany, Poland, and Greece will be postponed. The Adriatic League — boasting teams from Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Macedonia — has also paused operations indefinitely, per Givony.

The suspension of play approach is not universal, Givony indicates. Contests in Israel and Turkey will continue as scheduled, but Turkish games will be fan-free and Israeli games will be limited to just housing 100 people in their arenas.

Among the European teams Givony tallies, only the VTB League — which comprises squads from Poland, Estonia, Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus — will continue with normal attendance along with its normal schedule.

The Belgian EuroMillions Basketball League has suspended all games until April, according to Emiliano Carchia of Sportando. Carchia also notes that league competitions in the Netherlands, Romania and Slovakia have been suspended today (Twitter link).

How Coronavirus Is Impacting International Leagues

March 12th, 2020 at 9:41am CST by Luke Adams

After an eventful Wednesday that saw the NBA suspend its 2019/20 season indefinitely, many international basketball leagues are following suit on Thursday.

The EuroLeague, widely considered to be the world’s most competitive league outside of the NBA, announced that it has suspended all its games until further notice. EuroCup contests have also been suspended indefinitely, according to the announcement.

Per Emiliano Carchia of Sportando (via Twitter), leagues around Europe are taking similar measures. The ABA Liga, which features teams from Serbia, Slovenia, and Croatia, among other countries suspended play today. So did the professional leagues in Poland, Greece, and the Ukraine.

Other leagues may join that list in the coming hours or days, while some had already suspended play before Thursday. Spain’s Liga ACB announced earlier in the week that games for the next two weeks would be postponed. That break may now be extended further, with Real Madrid announcing today that a player on its roster has tested positive for COVID-19.

Meanwhile, FIBA has announced that all its competitions will be suspended indefinitely, beginning on Friday. It remains to be seen how long that hiatus will last, but if it extends well into the spring, it could have a major impact on this year’s Olympic qualifying tournaments, which are scheduled to take place in late June.

As leagues in North America and Europe shut down, the Chinese Basketball Association is preparing to resume play in April. According to ESPN’s Jonathan Givony, the CBA – which put its schedule on hold earlier this year – has told American players to return to China this week, though it’s not clear how many players will comply, since several have safety concerns.

According to Givony, some agents representing players who are under contract in China have said that CBA teams are telling them their clients are at risk of being banned from the league for life if they don’t return. Agents may also be at risk of losing their licenses there for two or three seasons.

Givony notes that there have been positive signs in China in recent weeks regarding containment of the virus, prompting the CBA to try to figure out how to finish its 2019/20 season. American players have been informed that they’ll need to spend 14 days in quarantine upon returning to China, sources tell ESPN.

NBA Has Discussed Possibility Of Relocating Games

March 11th, 2020 at 8:29am CST by Luke Adams

As the NBA continues to discuss potential responses to the coronavirus situation, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports that one scenario the league has considered would involve relocating some games to NBA cities that have yet to suffer outbreaks.

For instance, if a team forced out of its home arena due to a local outbreak, the NBA has weighed the possibility of moving that club’s games to the opponents’ arena, or even to a neutral site, says Wojnarowski.

That’s just one of several possible measures being discussed by the NBA, which continues to mull the idea of disallowing spectators for games or even suspending games for a period of time. As Wojnarowski explains, the league’s conversations are complicated by the fact that limited public testing in the United States has resulted in an incomplete picture of how “widespread and debilitating” the virus may become.

Sources tell ESPN that the NBA has been hesitant to take a drastic step such as voluntarily eliminating fans from home games. However, the idea of moving games to new cities may be problematic too — bringing players and team personnel from an area more significantly affected by the virus to an area that hasn’t yet been affected seems ill-advised for containment purposes.

As we noted on Tuesday night, the Warriors are one team whose home games may be impacted sooner rather than later, as government officials in the Bay Area consider how extensively to limit indoor public gatherings. Conversations between San Francisco health officials and the Warriors have been ongoing, according to Wojnarowski, who hears from sources that Golden State is the NBA’s highest-grossing team on game nights, earning between $3.6-3.8MM per contest.

The NBA, which is scheduled to have a conference call with ownership representatives on Wednesday, has also scheduled a call with all 30 heads of basketball operations for Thursday, tweets Marc Stein of The New York Times.

Basketball leagues in Europe continue to be affected by the spread of coronavirus, with EuroLeague and EuroCup games in Italy being relocated.

Suns, Wolves Reached Out To Donatas Motiejunas

March 10th, 2020 at 3:34pm CST by Arthur Hill

3:34pm: Motiejunas is expected to return to China on March 16, according to Emiliano Carchia of Sportando, who notes (via Twitter) that the Chinese Basketball Association has told its teams it anticipates resuming play in early April. That would take Motiejunas off the table for NBA clubs, unless he wants to try to reach a settlement with his Chinese team, like Randle did.

8:56am: Former NBA forward Donatas Motiejunas, whose Chinese Basketball Association season is on hold because of the coronavirus, was recently contacted by both the Suns and Timberwolves, tweets Lithuanian basketball journalist Donatas Urbonas. Motiejunas, who plays for the Shanghai Sharks, said in a radio interview that he also received interest from Maccabi Tel Aviv.

The CBA’s status is on hold while China tries to contain a massive outbreak of the virus, leaving overseas players uncertain about their future. Chasson Randle reached a settlement with his Chinese club last week and returned to the NBA on a 10-day deal with the Warriors.

Motiejunas, 29, is in his third season in China and his first with the Sharks. He is among the CBA’s most productive players, averaging 22.8 points and 15.1 rebounds through 28 games. He played six seasons in the NBA, mostly with the Rockets, but also had stays with the Pelicans and Spurs.

De’Aaron Fox Is Latest To Oppose Empty Arenas

March 10th, 2020 at 10:25am CST by Arthur Hill

As coronavirus becomes a growing concern in the sports world, Kings guard De’Aaron Fox is the latest NBA player to speak out against the idea of having games in empty arenas, writes Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee.

The league sent a memo to its teams last week listing that as a possibility if the outbreak continues to worsen. A conference call has been set for Wednesday with team owners and governors to discuss all the options being considered.

“I think I’d definitely rather postpone games than play with no fans,” Fox said. “That’s why you have a home court. That’s a part of most sports, having homecourt advantage or going into a hostile environment. That’s a part of the game. Without fans, it’s not the same game.”

LeBron James expressed similar sentiments over the weekend, calling it “impossible” to imagine games without fans present.

Sacramento coach Luke Walton tells Anderson the team is taking action to protect players and make sure they’re informed about the virus. Precautionary measures are in place to prevent the spread of germs at Golden 1 Center, including more hand-sanitizing stations.

“We’ve brought in doctors to talk to the team. We’ve showed them videos,” Walton said. “… The NBA is really good at player and fan safety always being at the forefront of what they do, so there’s constantly communication going on between all of our organizations and the NBA.”

There’s more on the virus and its impact on basketball:

Dr. John Swartzberg, an infectious-disease expert at UC Berkeley, tells Ethan Strauss of The Athletic that it’s unwise for sporting events to continue under current conditions. “I think large gatherings of people in closed environments in the case of a pandemic is not prudent,” he said. “It’s the perfect way to spread the virus.” Five new cases were reported Monday in San Francisco, bringing the city’s total to 13. Nearby Santa Clara County has banned gatherings of more than 1,000 people for the rest of the month, which will affect three home games for the NHL’s San Jose Sharks.
Associated Press Sports Editors has issued a statement opposing the locker room ban on media announced Monday by the NBA and three other North American sports leagues. “While we understand the gravity of the coronavirus outbreak and the need to contain it, such action is worthy of dialogue to come up with proper solutions to protect public health, allow media to inform the public and do our jobs properly,” the statement reads. “APSE joins writers’ groups in all leagues in objecting to this ban and welcomes discussions with the leagues to come to a reasonable resolution.”
The coronavirus continues to cause havoc with overseas schedules. No fans will be permitted at today’s playoff game in Spain between San Pablo Burgos and Banco di Sardegna Sassari, according to Emiliano Carchia of Sportando. Thursday’s EuroLeague game between Olympiacos and AX Armani Exhchange Milano will take place behind closed doors after the league denied Olympiacos’ request to postpone the contest or play it at a neutral site (Twitter link). Maccabi Tel Aviv will impose a limit of 5,000 fans for its next two home games (Twitter link).

And-Ones: NBA Calendar, China, McCollum, Len

March 9th, 2020 at 12:07pm CST by Luke Adams

Appearing on a panel at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Hawks CEO Steve Koonin suggested that the NBA should be starting and ending its season two months later, as Tim Bontemps of ESPN writes.

Rather than starting in mid-October, the regular season would begin in mid-December under Koonin’s proposal, resulting in less overlap between the NBA and NFL seasons. The NBA Finals would then take place in August instead of June, increasing the amount of time that MLB regular season games represent the NBA’s only competition among the four major sports.

“A big piece is you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to enhance ratings,” Koonin said in explaining his idea. “Sometimes, moving away from competition is a great way to grow ratings. If King Kong is at your door, you might go out the back door, rather than go out the front and engage in a hand-to-hand fight with King Kong.

“Many times, at the start of the NBA season, we are competing with arguably the best Thursday Night Football game with the NBA on TNT, our marquee broadcast, and we get crushed and we wonder why. It’s because at the beginning of the season, there’s very little relevance for the NBA. The relevance is now. That’s when people are talking about it.”

Although that would be a major change to the NBA calendar, the league isn’t opposed to considering the idea, as NBA senior VP of strategy and analytics Evan Wasch confirmed, per Bontemps: “We certainly have no issue with reconsidering the calendar. … We’re open to that … there’s no magic to [the season going from] October to June.”

Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

The Chinese Basketball Association, which has been on hiatus to the coronavirus, is expected to resume play on April 6, with games initially taking place behind closed doors, according to Emiliano Carchia of Sportando.
The NBA announced in a press release on Sunday that Trail Blazers guard CJ McCollum and Kings center Alex Len have been fined $20K and $15K respectively for their roles in an on-court shoving match on Saturday (video link).
In an interesting piece for The Athletic, Bill Shea takes an in-depth look at how Forbes’ annual NBA franchise valuations are determined and how accurate they are.
Although Zion Williamson and Ja Morant already look like stars and Brandon Clarke might be the steal of the first round, most of the rest of the 2019 draft class has been underwhelming so far. John Hollinger of The Athletic identifies a few players who may be good bets to help salvage it, including Coby White, Cody Martin, and Cam Reddish.

And-Ones: NBPA, Felton, Crabbe, Hunter

March 6th, 2020 at 9:55pm CST by Luke Adams

The National Basketball Players Association is set to begin its search for a successor to current executive director Michele Roberts, the NBPA’s executive committee announced today in a press release. Roberts, who has been the union’s executive director since 2014, won’t be seeking a contract extension beyond her current deal.

“For the past six years, I have greatly enjoyed and continue to enjoy leading the NBPA and am proud of all we have been able to accomplish,” Roberts said in a statement. “When I agreed to a second contract as Executive Director, I made clear that I would not be seeking a third. The Executive Committee and I are committed to making certain my successor is thoroughly prepared to assume the position upon my departure from the NBPA and continue its sustained path for growth.”

Roberts played a key role in the negotiations on the 2017 Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NBA and the players’ union. Both sides will have the ability to opt out of the ’17 agreement after the 2022/23 season, at which time a new executive director will be leading negotiations for the NBPA’s side.

Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

Veteran NBA guard Raymond Felton is expected to join Jindrichuv Hradec, a team in the Czech Republic, for the end of the season, as Emiliano Carchia of Sportando relays. It’s an unusual landing spot for Felton, but he has a connection to coach Gilbert Abraham, as GM Radek Novak explained in a statement.
Allen Crabbe has reached a plea deal in his DUI case, as Dan Feldman of NBC Sports details. The veteran swingman, who is now a free agent after being bought out by the Timberwolves, should avoid the NBA suspension that would come with a drunk-driving conviction, Feldman notes.
After playing in Turkey earlier this season, former first-round pick R.J. Hunter has returned stateside and is a member of the Hawks‘ G League team in College Park as he seeks an NBA comeback. Zach Koons of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has the story and the quotes from Hunter.

And-Ones: Italy, 2020 Draft, 2021 Free Agents

March 5th, 2020 at 4:00pm CST by Luke Adams

The coronavirus outbreak continues to have a major impact on Italian sports, with Nicola Lupo of Sportando passing along word that all sporting events taking place in Italy through April 3 will be played behind closed doors. The Italian government, which announced those measures, also said that athletes, coaches, and other team personnel will undergo medical tests to help avoid the virus from spreading.

There aren’t as many former NBA players competing professionally in Italy right now as there are in China and some other countries around the world, but Italy is still one of Europe’s basketball hubs, featuring one EuroLeague team in Olimpia Milano. The ruling will have a major impact on what basketball games in Italy look like over the next several weeks.

Here’s more from around the basketball world:

Georgia guard Anthony Edwards, the country’s leading freshman scorer, ranks atop many draft experts’ big boards for 2020. John Hollinger of The Athletic breaks down Edwards’ pros and cons, arguing that despite some flaws, Edwards has a “pretty high floor” and looks like “the least-bad option in a bad draft.”
Jonathan Tjarks of The Ringer wonders if the uninspiring crop of NCAA prospects this spring will prompt more teams to look at international draft options. Deni Avdija, Killian Hayes, and Theo Maledon are among the prospects who could appeal to NBA teams, as Tjarks details.
Although the 2021 free agent class looks tantalizing, many of the very best players who could hit the market that summer – including LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard – are already playing where they want to be, so it remains to be seen how much star movement there will be, writes Danny Leroux of The Athletic.
As Lonzo Ball tries to help push the Pelicans into the postseason and LaMelo Ball prepares for the 2020 draft, their brother LiAngelo Ball is expected to sign a G League contract soon, sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link). Ball has been practicing with the Thunder‘s NBAGL affiliate, the Oklahoma City Blue, as of late.

International Notes: Mirotic, Bolomboy, Douglas, N’Doye

March 3rd, 2020 at 6:00pm CST by Luke Adams

Nikola Mirotic was said to be in line for at least one contract offer in the three-year, $45MM range if he had remained in the NBA last summer, but he opted instead to return to the country where he began his professional career, signing with Barcelona. While he may not be earning quite as lucrative a salary in Spain, the veteran forward is enjoying a successful season so far.

The EuroLeague announced this week that Mirotic has been named the league’s MVP for the month of February, the equivalent of the NBA’s Player of the Month award. It’s the second time this season that Mirotic has earned the honor — he knocked down a pair of game-winning shots in February and averaged 21.0 PPG for the month. His Barcelona squad is now 20-6, good for third in the EuroLeague standings.

Here are more notes from around the international basketball world:

Former NBA forward Joel Bolomboy has signed a two-year contract extension with Russia’s CSKA Moscow, the club announced this week in a press release. Bolomboy, a former Weber State standout who appeared in 18 NBA games between 2016-18 for Utah and Milwaukee, is now under contract with the EuroLeague club through the 2021/22 season.
Veteran guard Toney Douglas, who played 394 regular season NBA games from 2010-17, has signed with Italian team Pallacanestro Varese for the remainder of the season, the club announced in a press release (hat tip to Sportando). Douglas has also played in Turkey and Spain since last suiting up for an NBA team.
After testing the draft waters a year ago, French prospect Abdoulaye N’Doye wasn’t sure he’d be drafted and decided to try to improve his stock leading up to his final year of eligibility. So far, N’Doye’s plan to bet on himself has been a success, according to Jeff Greer of The Athletic, who explores how the young guard’s impressive season for Cholet Basket has improved his standing on big boards for 2020.

NBA Issues Statement On Coronavirus

March 1st, 2020 at 9:06am CST by Arthur Hill

The NBA has talked to leading health officials as concerns about the coronavirus continue to grow, according to Stephen Whyno of the Associated Press. With a month and a half left in the regular season, there are no plans to alter the schedule, but league officials are working with the Centers for Disease Control and are keeping a close watch on the situation.

“The health and safety of our employees, teams, players and fans is paramount,” the NBA said in a statement released Saturday. “We are coordinating with our teams and consulting with the CDC and infectious disease specialists on the coronavirus and continue to monitor the situation closely.”

As the disease spreads across the globe, more than 85,000 people have been affected, with 2,900 reported deaths. There have been 62 cases in the United States, which reported its first fatality from the disease yesterday.

Trail Blazers guard CJ McCollum tweeted last night that he will stop signing autographs until the virus is under control.

“The Corona Virus has officially hit Oregon,” he wrote. “More specifically Lake Oswego…Make sure y’all washing y’all hands with soap for 20 or more seconds & covering ya mouths when you cough. I am officially taking a break from signing autographs until further notice.”

Internationally, the impact of the virus on the game is leading to extreme measures:

In China, where the virus originated, the CBA has suspended play and there has been no word on whether the season will resume.
Tuesday’s scheduled EuroLeague game between Olimipia Milano and Real Madrid will be played in a closed setting with no fans or media permitted to attend, tweets Emiliano Carchia of Sportando. Similar measures will also be taken for this week’s contest between Asvel and Valencia (Twitter link) and a EuroCup game between Brescia and Venezia (Twitter link).
Turkey has suspended all flights to Italy, which has 1,128 reported cases of the virus. An important EuroCup clash set for Wednesday in Istanbul between Virtus Bologna and Darussafaka is now in jeopardy (Twitter link).