May 8th was supposed to be a day of celebration for the NBA with some practice facilities opening back up.
The Thunder chose not to, but that proved to be a lesser story from Friday.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver held a conference call with the NBAPA for an hour and painted a grim picture on the league’s future…for now.
Per ESPN, Silver said this is “the single biggest challenge of our lifetime.” He also prepped the players for the possibility of not having any fans at NBA games through next season. He cited a need for testing capabilities as well as a vaccine.
Silver said that could cost the NBA up to 40 percent of it’s revenue if fans aren’t at games.
Beyond that, Silver added that players would likely need a three week training camp at minimum before returning to action. He also said that the NBA doesn’t have to decide on a return date until at least mid-June.
One of the topics is where the games would be played. ESPN says the two cities mentioned on the call to host games are Orlando and Las Vegas, but Silver added other cities are interested. By playing in one or two cities, that cuts down on the amount of travel needed which could help get a season in faster.
Silver’s hope is also that the league will still have the opportunity to play a seven game series for every round of the playoffs.
To find out more on every aspect of the conference call, you can check out Adrian Wojnarowski’s twitter account.
