NBAPA claims players wants to play
While the National Basketball Association may have been forced to halt play back on March 11th when the Utah Jazz’s Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19, both the players and owners are now ready to return to action and conclude the 2019-20 campaign. The NBA Players Association executive-director Michele Roberts confirmed as much on Tuesday in an interview with ESPN.
Following virtual team-by-team calls with players, Roberts made it clear that the players’ priority is to return and finish the season.
“Let’s just get it out there, because our guys need to know,” Roberts told ESPN. “Certainty will be good. But the players really want to play.”
Recent reports suggest that the NBA is likely to resume play in late-July at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports in Orlando, Florida. This would provide players and teams with the opportunity to begin training again in their local cities prior to traveling to Florida where they would remain. Having all games played at the same venue would ensure there was no unnecessary travel and would avoid having to work with multiple state and federal governments. The NHL have presented a similar plan, but they will be use two hub-cities – one for Eastern Conference teams and one for Western Conference teams.
“The NBA, in conjunction with the National Basketball Players Association, is engaged in exploratory conversations with The Walt Disney Company about restarting the 2019-20 NBA season in late July at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Florida as a single site for an NBA campus for games, practices and housing,” NBA spokesman Mike Bass said last week.
“Our priority continues to be the health and safety of all involved, and we are working with public health experts and government officials on a comprehensive set of guidelines to ensure that appropriate medical protocols and protections are in place.”
While no proposal has been officially submitted to the players yet, but Roberts said the union will not need to undergo a lengthy process to approve of the plans once they are presented with them. Following her calls with the players, she seems to have a good sense of what they want to do.
“If we thought we needed a vote, we would. If we’re ratifying a CBA, we need a vote,” Roberts said. “But our preferred method is talking to people or just having them talk to us. Then if we get a sense of what the sentiment is then we can move forward. We talk to our players and figure it out.”
If the league is to return and finish the season, it is unlikely that all teams will be required to report. With most teams having played around 65 games already, the NBA may opt to just resume with the playoffs and forget about the remainder of the regular season. It would mean only 16 teams have to travel as opposed to all 30.
“It’s time. It’s time,” Roberts said. “It’s been two and a half months of, ‘What if?’ My players need some level of certainty. I think everybody does.”
