It’s starting to look more and more like the 2019-20 NBA season will return in some form here in the next two months.
Those around the Association are confident something can be done amid the ongoing pandemic. As you likely already know, the latest plan includes playing games in “bubble” cities without fans in attendance. The Las Vegas Strip in Nevada makes a lot of sense in that regard.
The NBPA just polled players about their opinions regarding whether to resume the season. While we don’t have any results from that unscientific poll, one unnamed NBA player believes that 70% of his colleagues support the idea of resuming the season.
“But 30% is a big number,” the player said, via Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times. “And what do you say to somebody who says, ‘You know what, I just don’t feel safe?’ It’s hard to argue that. But there are reasons to argue that because I know the NBA would be one of the safest places to be at. That thing would be tight, clean, protocol, all that.”
You’re highly unlikely to get a bigger consensus at this stage of the pandemic. Seven out of 10 has to be seen as good for those who support a resumption of the season.
As the unnamed player noted, the NBA would enact some pretty crazy safety measures if the season were to continue in a “bubble city.” This includes quarantine for the players, team personnel and family members from the general population. It would seemingly be safe.
Las Vegas makes sense in this regard in that there was less than 470 active cases of COVID-19 in the Clark County area at the time of this publication. That’s out of a population of 2.3 million.
Regardless, the NBA wants to have a final determination about whether to resume the season within the next 2-4 weeks. By in large, players seem to support the idea of said season continuing in some form.