Some of the NBA’s teams may begin opening their practice facilities on May 8, but just because the Oklahoma City Thunder will be permitted to doesn’t mean they will.
That was the main takeaway from Thunder general manager Sam Presti’s video conference call on Thursday, where he spoke publicly for the first time since the NBA suspended operations back on March 11.
Presti’s comments came shortly after the league distributed updated guidance to its teams which will essentially allow teams located in states which have seen rollbacks of stay-at-home orders to reopen their practice facilities.
Oklahoma is one such state.
According to the guidance distributed by the league, teams may have up to four players in their practice facilities at once, but are not permitted to hold any sort of group workouts or team activities.
Even with some restrictions continuing to be in place, players returning to practice facilities are believed to be the first step toward any possible resumption of play.
Still, Presti wouldn’t commit to the Thunder reopening their training facilities on May 8, as reported by Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman.
“With respect to the May 8 date, what I can say is the league has stated that’s a target date,” Presti said. “And we’re still a week or so away from that before we can even get there. And I think what we’ve all seen that live through this experience is that things are changing literally day by day. So we’re evaluating that. I wouldn’t say we’re committed to doing that.”
The Thunder carried a 40-24 record into play on March 11, good for fifth in the Western Conference.
Whether the league opts to resume the regular season or skip straight to the playoffs — the latter is believed to be the more likely scenario — a postseason berth is extremely likely for the club.
Having access to the training facility could give the Thunder’s players a competitive advantage over some of their counterparts who will continue to be impacted by stay-at-home orders in other states, but Presti did not indicate that the club would be in a rush to return to work to take advantage of that fact.
“We’re going to continue to speak to our players about that whole entire concept of coming back,” Presti said. “But the league has given some flexibility to the teams to determine what is best for them. And for us, we’re operating under the assumption that the league wouldn’t be permitting players and staff members back into facilities unless they felt it was absolutely safe. With that being said, we still have some time before we would even be able to take that option. And we’re going to be thorough in how we look at it.”
Presti’s call came on the same day that Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry and LeBron James refuted a report that suggested that many within the league were pushing for a cancellation of the remainder of the season.
If nothing else, Presti’s comments taken in conjunction with Lasry and James’ accounts would probably suggest the opposite.