Stan Szeto-USA TODAY Sports
For the Warriors’ sake, maybe it’s for the best if this year isn’t completed.
But for any basketball fan, it’s getting harder and harder to envision players returning to the court to finish up the 2019-20 season.
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst reported that the players association and NBA are not discussing ways to resurrect a season that has been pinned down by the coronavirus pandemic, but instead looking for avenues to figure out the financial ramifications of a missed season.
“The NBA is angling to set up a deal that enables them to shut the season down,” Windhorst said on “SportsCenter.” “They don’t have to do that yet and the way they’re negotiating, they’re leaving themselves an option either way. But they are not having talks about how to restart the league. They’re having financial talks about what would happen if the league shuts down.”
President Trump reportedly told league commissioners that he hopes the sports leagues lead the way to returning life to normal in a phone call Saturday, but his opinion about a restart date — he hopes the NFL season can begin on time — is really as good as anyone else’s. No one knows for sure when the world and sports can resume.
And if the American sports world is looking toward China, it’s getting discouraged.
“I think there was optimism about progress a week ago. But some things that have happened this week have turned it south about what could happen,” Windhorst said. “A big factor was what happened in China, where they halted the return of their league. One of the big reasons was because they really believed that if they tested the players’ temperatures at all times it would work. The Chinese are finding that asymptotic carriers are causing maybe a second wave in that country and they have slammed the brakes on sports.”
.@WindhorstESPN says there’s “a significant amount of pessimism” in the NBA and the NBPA’s talks about whether they’re going to cancel the season. pic.twitter.com/SAGMJlFRDO
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 4, 2020