The National Basketball Association was the first league to officially postpone its season in what was the first domino in a long line of dominos to follow. Saturday marked the one-month anniversary of no basketball being played as Adam Silver announced the indefinite suspension of the league on March 11.
The decision was made following the Rudy Gobert incident in which Gobert touched a bunch of audio equipment as a joke and then tested positive for the virus two days later.
The coronavirus pandemic at the time seemed to be something that could pass quick if we did a good enough job of containing the outbreak, but that was totally wrong. There’s now a dark cloud of doom reigning over the sports world, canceling everything in its path.
Just last week, Dana White had lined up an entire UFC event to take place but had to, unfortunately, cancel due to, once again, the coronavirus.
All of a sudden, there’s a slight glimmer of hope as rumors are swirling about possible resuming the NBA and MLB seasons. The NBA has canceled most operations until May 1 but will be hosting a press conference that day to address the situation and what the NBA will be looking to do moving forward.
One option is to create “bubble cities” to resume play in the NBA. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban made it known he approved of the idea on an appearance on ESPN. “America needs sports,” he said. “We need something to root for. We need something to be excited about.”
Not So Fast
The Free Press talked to medical professionals Dr. Brian Schwartz and Dr. John Swartzberg about the return of the NBA. “The worst thing we can do would be to open up venues like basketball where you’re bringing so many people together,” Swartzberg said. “That’s the very worst thing we can do and should be the last thing we do, which is not only protecting the people who attend those games but protecting all of us. It’s like having a fire and then throwing kerosene on it.”
While it may be possible to bring back NBA games soon, the attendance of fans at games looks to be a long way out. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says its unlikely fans will be able to attend games until a vaccine is produced, which will take up to a year at least.
Dr. Schwartz went on to explain that there is still a lot of unknowns with the coronavirus. “If I ended up having COVID-19, I got infected, I’m immune now, and I have an antibody test that’s positive, does that mean nine months from now that that immunity is still present and I would not be able to get infected again?” Schwartz said.
“I think where we are in terms of research and science, we actually don’t know the answer to that right now. Those kinds of unknowns make those things hard.”
