Source: Michael Reaves / Getty
The NBA season was suspended on March 11 because of the coronavirus, and after almost 2 months, league officials are eyeing a return date.
Sources told ESPN that the league plans to open teams’ practice facilities on Friday, May 1. However, this rule will only go into effect in states where the stay-at-home restrictions have been eased like Texas and Georgia which opened up this weekend to help jumpstart the local community by allowing people to get back to work.
Some still think it’s way too early to open things back and being overzealous could cause another spike in cases. Rapper Killer Mike owns barbershops in Georgia and doesn’t plan on reopening his businesses just yet. The lack of consistent testing and a vaccine still has people being extremely cautious.
“Our first concern is the safety of our employees and the safety of our customers,” he explained to TMZ. “And we have an incentive to open, we could use that incentive, and we definitely wanna make money. [But] at this time, as a business, we aren’t comfortable opening. We’re gonna wait a while before we re-open.”
As the facilities are cautiously opened back up, Teams are still not allowed to hold group workouts or organized team activities. But in places like New York, which has been the epicenter of the coronavirus in the United States, the NBA plans to comply with the state’s order than no one –including NBA players– can leave their homes for non-essential reasons. With the conclusion of the 2019-20 season on the horizon, seventh year National Basketball Players Association president Chris Paul wants the league to provide the players with ample time — at least 3 to 4 weeks– to get back in shape.
“I’m just letting you know — and I don’t think the league would do it anyway — but if they were like, ‘Hey, you got two weeks, and then we’re going,’ that’s not going to happen,” Paul said during a conference call. “That’s not going to happen. Whatever the amount of time is, just know that players will have the input, the say-so, because we’re the ones playing. That comes first. We don’t ever want to put guys in a situation where their injury risk is higher than ever before.”
