Report: ‘optimism is growing’ 2019-20 NBA season will be resumed

There are rumbles the 2019-20 NBA season might be back this summer, and the Boston Celtics with it.

There is growing hope the 2019-20 NBA season may be able to be saved, according to the Athletic’s Sam Amick.

While league commissioner Adam Silver has gone on record to note there will be no resumption of league activities until the NBA gets the go-ahead from public health officials, and that no assessment will be made before May 1, Amick cites a growing belief among those with ties to the league that the season will resume this summer.

Amick is quick to note he did not conduct anything along the lines of an exhaustive survey of relevant parties — “In the interest of full transparency, I didn’t poll every owner, player or agent out there. Not even close.” — but his limited inquiry is still informative.

Instead, Amick “quickly found it apparent that there’s a shared goal of finding a way of finishing this campaign and a widespread sense that it’s still feasible.”

But what does feasible mean?

“There’s a way of [bringing back professional sports],” Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading expert on the COVID-19 pandemic said on the Snapchat show “Good Luck America”, per USA Today’s Chris Bumbaca.

“Nobody comes to the stadiums. Put [athletes] in big hotels, wherever you want to play. Keep them very well-surveilled, but have them tested like every week and make sure they don’t wind up infecting each other or their families and just let them play the season out.”

If the NBA is to return, this is almost certainly how it will happen. The Celtics Wire has previously highlighted the importance of widely available coronavirus testing to the resumption of league activities, and adding a secure location as an extra precaution makes sense.

But then the questions begin.

What location? Who will be allowed there — just players, or their families as well? When will it start, and how long will players have to get into shape? Will there be a regular season, or just playoffs — and if so, what will the schedule look like in any case?

Rather than try and answer these and many other questions, it’s probably wise to take a more cautious approach, since so many other factors may ultimately impact these answers that are still too far off to truly begin to grapple with.

A few questions — like where the centralized, audience-less location might be — can be guessed at, however. Amick and many others have noted Las Vegas as a potential location, given its abundant hotels and facilities, and previous experience hosting the NBA’s Las Vegas Summer League.

Others, such as Yahoo’s Keith Smith, point out the Orlando area — and specifically Walt Disney World — could be a compelling spot to hold such an event. Atlantic City, New Jersey and Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, are among other destinations being floated.

It’s currently far too early to say much about when — or even if — such an eventuality comes to fruition before other forces demand a reassessment.

But, it’s not outside of the realm of possibility enough that earnest conversations are beginning to take place about what a return of the 2019-20 NBA season might look like just a day ahead of the league’s April Board of Governors meeting.

While the meeting — which, like most these days, will be a remote one — won’t likely produce any kind of comprehensive plan for a return on its own, with this kind of sentiment circulating around the NBA community that a safe return to action is not a pipe dream, it’s up to us to temper our expectations.

While hoping this is part of a broader return to something resembling normal life.

[lawrence-related id=32736,32728,32622,32573]