Tag: NBA Hiatus

NBA players told they will get their April 15 paychecks as scheduled

The NBA announced on Wednesday that all of their players would get paid as they expected they would on April 15.

After a little bit of uncertainty regarding when they would get paid next, the announced on Thursday morning that they would be making scheduled payments to their players on April 15, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

After players were given their paychecks for April 1, there was some uncertainty about whether they would get paid next. That became one of the bigger stories in the league, which of course involved Klutch Sports and LeBron James. James, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and John Wall are among the few players in the NBA who have negotiated in their contracts to get 90% of their money by April 1. They are among a small minority of players in the league as most of the league gets their contracts paid out on a 12-month payscale. Right now, most of the league has still yet to get 50% of their paychecks.

While payments beyond April 15 are still unknown, sports teams are cutting costs and in some cases cutting staff while the outbreak has put the sports world on hold. However, the NBA nor the players, including LeBron James, aren’t done holding out hope that there’s a way to crown a 2020 NBA Champion.

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NBA telling teams to prepare for three month hiatus

The NBA is telling teams to look for arena dates into August as an option to resume the season, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

The National Basketball Associating is preparing their teams for multiple scenarios, including an outright cancellation of the season, in the response to the global pandemic of coronavirus. The situation is changing at seemingly all times, with the timeline of a potential restart of the league already moving quite a bit from the initial plans.

After NBA commissioner Adam Silver went on TNT and suggested that the absence of the league would be at least a month, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports that the league is telling teams to look for arena dates that go well into August if they do restart the season, meaning that the NBA won’t return for at least three months. The NBA is mulling several scenarios, according to Woj.

For now, there’s a working plan that games would return without fans, and teams have been told to search out arena dates well into August for the playoffs, sources said. Teams have been directed to give the league office potential dates at smaller nearby game venues, including team practice facilities, that could spare the use of empty, cavernous arenas and possibly provide backdrops to unique television viewing lines.

The CDC recommended a cancellation or postponement of gatherings of 50 people or more for the next eight weeks.

So it looks like the NBA will look at several options, even playing games at practice facilities rather than arenas, which would cut down on the number of people needed to work those games. However, everything, even an outright cancellation, is an option.

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LeBron James shares message with fans: ‘We miss you guys already’

Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James wanted to let his fans know that he misses playing in front of them on Thursday night.

LeBron James, like the rest of the world, is still getting used to the new normal that includes a stop basically every major sport worldwide. Last night he shared that he was watching old highlights of him playing with his friend Dwyane Wade on the Miami Heat with his youngest son Bryce Maximus. But last night was also a night in which NBA commissioner Adam Silver addressed NBA fans on TNT’s Inside The NBA and sent out a message to all of the league’s fans.

LeBron himself reposted Silver’s message, with a message of approval for Silver himself, as well as a message to the fans who he plays for.

Before LeBron fully grasped the severity of the coronavirus, he said that he didn’t want to play games without fans because they are one of the reasons he plays. But even before the virus hit Rudy Gobert and the NBA, James had already begun to change is stance after the severity of the public health crisis became clear to him.

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