At the Brooklyn Nets’ celebration of …

At the Brooklyn Nets’ celebration of Chinese Lunar New Year on Jan. 29, Silver asked Dr. David Ho, Time Magazine’s Person of the Year in 1996 for his groundbreaking work in treating the HIV virus, to start advising the league on COVID-19. Senior vice president David Weiss began preparing a memo to distribute to teams, alerting them to the growing threat and providing guidance on how to prepare for it.

On Jan. 31 — just days after the …

On Jan. 31 — just days after the outbreak in China had forced the Chinese Basketball Association to shut down, and five days after Bryant’s death — Weiss delivered his first memo to teams: “In light of the global reach of the NBA and frequent travel of teams and staff, we are closely monitoring the spread of a respiratory illness caused by a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) both in the United States and internationally,” Weiss wrote.