Has the time come for the NBA to cancel the 2019-2020 season?
By Ethan Becker
The 2019-2020 NBA season has been on hiatus for over two months. With no clear end to the COVID-19 pandemic, should the league cancel its season?
On March 11th, 2020, the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Utah Jazz got some concerning news: Jazz center Rudy Gobert had just tested positive for COVID-19. Within hours, without even a call to the league’s board of directors, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver suspended the season indefinitely. He knew it was the right call to make.
And you know what? He was right. Nobody knew how far and wide this thing would spread, especially if given the breeding ground of an NBA just gearing up for its most active time of the season. Not only that, but time proved Silver right as well, as just one week after the suspension 10 NBA members–whether players or team personnel–had tested positive for COVID-19.
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These are just the numbers we know of for certain, as teams are under no obligation to announce positive tests. If the league had been more hesitant in suspending the season, there’s no telling how high that number could have risen.
From that point on, Silver, the NBA, and the NBAPA have all been working together to slowly restart the season, with just a little headway being made last week as NBA teams were allowed to–again, slowly–reopen practice facilities.
However, as of my writing of this, the NBA doesn’t seem any closer to resuming the season than they did a month or so ago; and the question has to be asked: should the NBA cancel its season?