Silver: NBA Games With No Fans 'Greatest Challenge Of Our Lives'
DALLAS - The NBA is working on plans to play games without fans in the stands - and with the financial consequences that commissioner Adam Silver says "could turn out to be the single greatest challenge of all our lives.''
Silver's comments were made Friday to players via a conference call in which he instructed that the COVID-19 crisis could have a large and negative impact on league and players' revenue, as that 40 percent of the league's revenue comes from game nights in arenas.
While addressing the relatively grim financial realities of future salary caps, Silver - via audio tape obtained by ESPN - said no decision on returning to play this season has been made ... or needs to be made in the next month. The commissioner added that returning to play this season at one or two potential sites (there has been much speculation about Disneyworld in Orlando and Las Vegas) makes medical sense.
"There's no point in adding risk for flying all of you city to city if there's not going to be fans," Silver said. "We think it would be safer to be in a single location, or two locations, to start."
Silver also said that regardless of whether this season is completed, the start of next season could be pushed back until December. The tone of patience is one echoed by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who has not opened up the Mavs' gym despite now having the state-ordered legal right to do so.
"The CBA was not built for extended pandemics,'' he said. "Until there's a vaccine, or some cocktail preventing people from dying from the virus, we are going to be dealing with this collectively. The ultimate issue is how much risk we're all comfortable taking."
