NBA Suspends Season Due to COVID-19

As more and more cases of COVID-19 reach the United States and North America as a whole, special precautions have been taken to avoid risk of widely spreading the disease. One of these precautions was seen on the night of March 11th when the NBA made a decision to suspend the NBA 2019-2020 season until further notice.

What sparked the suspension of the NBA season was the “NBA’s Nightmare” as ESPN reporter Stephen A. Smith called it. “A player has contracted the virus and he has been around other players.”

On March 11th, the Utah Jazz Center Rudy Gobert tested positive for Coronavirus prior to the Jazz’s matchup with the Oklahoma City Thunder, and this gave NBA Commissioner Adam Silver all the incentive to postpone the season. Like many other athletes not just in basketball, but other sports as well, Gobert was not one that took heed to the warnings of Coronavirus.

On Monday, March 9th, Gobert was being interviewed at a press conference where expressed his carelessness for the disease when he jokingly touched all the microphones, mocking the safety measures told to use when avoiding the disease. Two days later when Gobert was not feeling well enough to play in his team’s game against the Thunder, he would receive the upsetting news that he contracted the virus.

After that news, every NBA player, coach, and facility staff member received testing, or are currently in line to receive testing. Gobert issued a statement on Instagram apologizing for his actions; “I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of concern and support over the last 24 hours. I have gone through so many emotions since learning of my diagnosis…mostly fear, anxiety, and embarrassment. The first and most important thing is I would like to publicly apologize to the people that I may have endangered. At the time, I had no idea I was even infected. I was careless and make no excuse. I hope my story serves as a warning and causes everyone to take this seriously. I will do whatever I can to support using my experience as way to educate others and prevent the spread of this virus. I am under great care and will fully recover. Thank you again for all your support. I encourage everyone to take all of the steps to stay safe and healthy. Love.”

While there have been at least five cases of coronavirus in the NBA, the most notable players to have contracted the virus are Gobert, Kevin Durant, and Gobert’s teammate Donovan Mitchell. Durant and Mitchell have stated they feel “fine,” and according to Gobert, “[he] has been feeling a little better every single day.”

The NBA has influenced other sports in their decisions on how to stay safe during this Coronavirus epidemic.

According to CBS Sports, the NHL, MLB, Soccer, Horse Racing, College basketball all postponed their league events. The MLB, NFL and College football leagues have taken precautionary measures even when their seasons have not started yet. MLB is pushing back the start of their season, some teams in the NFL are not allowing their talent scouts to go out of state for the time being, and some teams in College Football are not participating in their spring football games.

As for NBA players right now they get a break from work, but it is an unwanted break. ESPN reporter Jay Williams described it as “uncertainty.” Williams also went on to say that “guys have no idea what to do, guys wanna go back to the practice facility, they have hopes they can have a season this year, they want to continue to train and keep their bodies in alignment, but you can’t do that because you have lack of resources.” He explains that players want to do the job they love dearly, which is play basketball, but being that they need to stay healthy and away from this disease, the best thing they can do is stay quarantined.

There is no way of knowing when or if the NBA will return to the 2019-2020 regular season, or post-season for that matter.  As there are increasing cases of Coronavirus all over the U.S. let alone the NBA, it is possible that this suspension will last until the summer.