While details are still being determined, the NBA plans to restart its 2019-20 season, potentially in late July at Disney's ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex near Orlando.
Thoughts?
“I think the NBA has looked at every possible option,” Ian Eagle said on The DA Show. “Everything was on the table. Every rumor that you heard over the last six weeks has been real. They’ve considered it all. They’ve looked at every contingency available to them, and we know there is no playbook for this. So Adam Silver, who I have a great deal of respect for, a very bright guy, certainly takes into account other people’s opinions and then tries to form the best one for the league, this was the determination – that getting them into a controlled environment, a bubble format, was the way to go.”
It is unknown whether the NBA will complete all, or some, of its regular season, or if it will go directly into the playoffs, which may or may not be altered or expanded.
“We don’t know yet what this is going to look like,” Eagle said. “That part is still a mystery, but we do know the NBA is planning on getting this thing resumed and putting their players in the best possible situation to feel healthy and to feel safe moving forward. That’s as big of a challenge. We lose sight of that because we get excited about the sports end, but we have to remember the health side and making sure that – not just players, but any staff member that’s deemed essential – feels safe doing this on a day-in, day-out basis.”
While fans should learn more in the coming weeks, know this: not everyone will be happy with the NBA’s solution.
“Someone’s going to be upset,” Eagle said. “There’s going to be teams that are upset that they’re not given a chance to participate, and then there might be teams upset that they are given a chance to participate if they have nothing really to play for, teams that are out of the playoff picture and are being asked to now congregate and get their team down to Orlando and go through what they might deem as a charade for the rest of the quote-unquote regular season if they determine that that’s what they want to do. So we still have a lot of unanswered questions with the NBA, but they did take a very important step in announcing that they are gearing up and preparing to resume.”
Whenever the NBA does return, it’ll be interesting to see if Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving are among those playing.
“I don’t know if KD and Kyrie are going to play,” Eagle said. “I don’t know if they know if they’re going to play. Until we know what the set-up is, what the format is, what the dates are, how their bodies are feeling, it’s impossible to answer that question. But I understand why people are raising the question because you just have to look at the calendar. Kevin Durant injured his Achilles in the NBA Finals just about a year ago, so we’re talking about 12 months – and by the time they would play, it would be 13 months. If you go off of others that have dealt with this injury, that’s normally when you can come back and be comfortable and play. But he has to be comfortable. That’s the ultimate question: is he comfortable and ready?”