As the entire country continues to deal with a massive pandemic, the NBA and commissioner Adam Silver continues to wrestle with the possibility of being able to restart the 2019-20 season.
Teams had between 15-20 games remaining in the regular season at the time of postponement with a number still fighting for 2020 NBA playoffs position.
Different possibilities have been rumored over the past few weeks. One of the earlier reports suggested the league hoped to play a shortened amount of regular season games before moving into the playoffs while recent rumors suggest the league is pessimistic that it will be able to return at all and expects to cancel the rest of the season.
What the ultimate outcome will be remains unknown at this time and will remain as such for some time. Silver recently spoke on the possibility of an NBA return and said they won’t be able to make any decision until at least the month of May, according to Tim Bontemps of ESPN:
“Essentially what I’ve told my folks over the last week is we should just accept that at least for the month of April, we won’t be in a position to make any decisions,” Silver said in an interview with TNT’s Ernie Johnson aired on the NBA’s Twitter page. “I don’t think that necessarily means that, on May 1, we will be [in that position], but at least I know that just to settle everyone down a little bit.”
Silver went further, saying that they have no better sense of when a return could come than they did when the league initially shut down:
“The short answer is no,” Silver said, when asked if he has a better sense of when the league will be able to return than he did when it shut down. “And, interestingly enough, I think if you and I on March 12 had been asked that same question, both of us would have said, ‘It’s hard to imagine that three-plus weeks later, we wouldn’t have a better understanding of where we are.’
There are so many things that must be worked out in order for the season to resume. By May, the playoffs would usually be in full swing and once they end in June, the NBA Draft is not long after followed by free agency. Everything would need to be re-scheduled in order for the season to resume and with the amount of work that would need to go into that, it’s impossible to know if a return is possible when no one knows when the world will be back to normal.
Silver and the NBA will exhaust every option to ensure that the season is finished and reportedly Las Vegas is under consideration — something Jared Dudley agrees with.
But at this point, it’s out of their hands until further notice.
