Has the time come for the NBA to cancel the 2019-2020 season?

The problem with bubble cities

A bubble city, basically, is a place where NBA teams, officials, and production crew all live and work and play games (which, excluding the current circumstances, sounds like a lovely place). ESPN has released numerous stories that say the league estimates that, in order to do this, they would need space for 1,500 people.

This includes players, team personnel, production members, and officials; but it does not include hotel workers or team family members, which could raise that number to anywhere from 1,800 to 2,000 people. With the league estimating they’ll need 10 test kits per person to finish the season, that would be 20,000 test kits in a country where they are already in short supply.

Now, the simplest fix to this problem would be to isolate players and essential personnel from their family members, but the league says that is an “untenable concession”. NBPA Executive Director, Michele Roberts, explains why:

"So then the players were like, ‘Well, I don’t know that it’s worth it to be away from my family for that long,'” Roberts said. “We could do all that, and then what happens when one or two or 10 players test positive after that 28-day isolation? Do we shut it down?"

Roberts said that players felt like it would be worth it if the league could guarantee player safety; but they can’t do that without strict surveillance:

"Are we going to arm guards around the hotel…That sounds like incarceration to me."

While Roberts’s point might seem a little hyperbolic, the idea is more than reasonable. If the honor code for staying isolated is too lax, and there isn’t a way to enforce it, what happens when someone breaks it and becomes infected?

This, aside from the sheer number of tests that Silver feels uncomfortable using, is the biggest hurdle to the NBA’s bubble concept; but Silver still described it as the option that, “…made the most sense.”