The NBA was the first of the major sports leagues in North America to shut down in the face of COVID-19. More than a month later, they are no closer to knowing when they might return to action.
Pledging that it’s about “the data, not the date,” commissioner Adam Silver said the league can only gather information and wait on a Friday evening conference call which follows a regularly-scheduled board of governors meeting — one that would have normally taken place on the eve of the NBA playoffs.
“We all have to accept that we’re operating with incomplete facts here,” said Silver. “There is an enormous amount about the virus that is yet to be learned.”
He added: “We are not in any position to make a decision [about returning to play] and it’s not clear when we will be.”
Silver acknowledged that while “there is great symbolism around sports in [the United States] and to the extent that we do find a path back it will be very meaningful for Americans … we’re not at the point where we can say if [conditions] A, B, and C are met, then there is a clear path.
“There is still too much uncertainty at this point to say how precisely we move forward. The underlying principal remains the health and safety of NBA players and everyone involved, we begin with that as paramount and the decision tree moves forward from there”
Silver said the league would be monitoring the rate of infections, the availability of wide-scale testing, the progress of potential vaccines and the potential anti-viral medications as part of any return-to-play decision, however distant.
“There is a lot of data,” he said.
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According to previous reports, the expectation is that teams and players would need about 25 days to get ready for any return and the league has been considering scenarios where the 2019-20 season is extended into July and August.
But Silver said any talk that the NBA could return to play without fans in a single, quarantined location such as at Las Vegas casino — the so-called “bubble-concept” — is premature.
“Many [ideas] have been proposed and we’ve only listened,” said Silver, who stressed that any return to play would have to preceded by assurances that front-line healthcare workers were properly cared for in terms of testing and PPE. “We’re not seriously engaged yet in that type of environment, because I can’t answer what precisely we would need to see to feel that environment provided the health and safety we would need to see for our players and everyone involved.
“As I sit here today there is too much unknown to set a timeline, there is too much unknown to say ‘these are the precise variables’ … we’re not in a position to know more at this point.”
Silver said that the NBA and their owners are eager to return to play this season but with significant caveats.
“My sense of NBA team owners is that, if they can be part of the movement to restart our economy, that includes the NBA. They almost see that as a civic obligation,” he said. “… But when dealing with human life, that trumps anything else we can possibly talk about. That’s sort of where the conversations began and ended today.”
Silver also confirmed an early report by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN that the league and NBA Players Association have agreed on a mechanism to withhold money from the players should games end up being cancelled due to COVID-19.
Players will be paid in full on May 1 but will have their cheques trimmed by 25 per cent — according to a formula within the CBA — beginning on May 15th with salary reductions extending into the first two months of the 2020-21 season.
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The NBA and the players share basketball-related income on a roughly 51-49 split in favour of the players. To allow room for any adjustments, players already have 10 per cent of their salary — about $380 million total — held in escrow in case revenues fall short of projections. As long as revenues meet expectations, the players receive the money held in escrow at the end of the fiscal year.
But with the league having halted operations, it is anticipated that revenues will fall short of even the 10 per cent held in escrow. By reducing salaries now the league won’t have to chase players for money after the fact and any potential loss of income for the players will be introduced on a gradual basis.
The CBA has a never-before-used “force majeure” provision that allows owners to claw back salaries due to revenue losses stemming from “unforeseeable circumstances.” It is automatically triggered once games are officially cancelled due to things like epidemics, pandemics or government order.
According to the Associated Press, the CBA stipulates that players lose approximately 1.09 per cent of salary per canceled game, based on the force majeure provision. Given that there are 259 regular-season games left to be played, if they are cancelled players would stand to lose about $800-million in gross salary.
Once there is a cancellation of games, the force majeure is automatically triggered under the language of the CBA.
The NBA was the first of the major professional sports league to shut down a decision that came in the wake of a positive test for Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert on March 11.
In earlier statements, Silver has said that he wouldn’t provide any guidance on next steps for the league until May 1 given the uncertainty of the landscape.
He said Friday that his outlook hasn’t changed and that there was no guarantee that there would be any clear guidelines to offer at that point either.
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