NBA News and Notes: Season To Continue In Orlando?

After being the first league to formally shut down due to the coronavirus, the NBA still hopes to finish its season, one that doesn’t have a whole lot left. Still, with no clear end in sight to the pandemic, there are increasing concerns as to how to finish this season without disrupting next season too much.
Despite the hiatus from the season, there has still been plenty of news circulating, including ideas for how a season might resume. Let’s take a look at that as well as other news stories from the last week:
NBA At The Magic Kingdom?
As all leagues are doing at this point, the NBA is trying to set up contingency plans for what a resumed season could look like, if they get the chance. One idea that has recently hit the rumor mill is based around Walt Disney World.
According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, the league is contemplating whether Walt Disney World could be a suitable landing spot for the NBA if they choose to play all of their games in one location.
Breaking down the logistics of such a plan, the resort has plenty of hotel space and does feature multiple basketball courts. Additionally, with Disney World likely not able to resume at full capacity in the near future, they could certainly make it work in terms of quarantining the players.
In fact, for Walt Disney World, given that they will likely have to return to normalcy in phases (possibly only 50% capacity when they first open up their doors), it could be worthwhile for them as well given that they can probably generate some revenue through the agreement.
Practice Facilities Starting To Open Soon
According to Marc Stein of The New York Times, the NBA appears ready to start allowing teams to open up some of their practice facilities. These would be for voluntary individual workouts that would allow up to four players in at a time with one other team personnel member (according to Shams Charania of The Athletic).
While this is just a target date, it does indicate that the NBA appears to be one step closer in terms of allowing preparations for the resumption of a season. Granted, there are still a lot of logistics that need to be figured out, but optimism remains high that there will be a finality to the 2019-20 season.
Another Prospect Spurns NCAA
Could this be the new normal? Could this be the beginning of the end of NCAA men’s basketball? It certainly is an unsettling trend if you like college hoops.
After both Jalen Green and Isaiah Todd spurned the NCAA for the G-League, another top prospect has joined the growing trend. This time it is five-star high school recruit, Daishen Nix.
Nix has chosen to decommit from UCLA and instead will sign with the G-League, according to Shareef Abdur-Rahim, the G-League president. Nix, Green and Todd are all among the best prep prospects in the country, according to Rivals.com, and now will be teammates on the new G-League Select Team.
It is expected that Nix will receive a six-figure salary to play for the G-League, far surpassing anything he could have made in college. While it is not expected to be the $500,000 that Green will receive, it still won’t be a bad payday for a kid straight out of high school preparing to join the NBA.