NBA Takes Coronavirus Action; What are the Cowboys and NFL Waiting For?

DALLAS - My initial reaction on Wednesday morning, after having interviewed a handful of Dallas Cowboys sources to bring me to this story about "business as usual'' inside The Star in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic?

To each his own. The NFL can do what it wishes, regardless of what, say, the NBA might do.

But shortly thereafter, as I sat at the AAC covering the NBA's coronavirus-driven decision to suspend regular-season play following the conclusion of the Denver Nuggets-at-Dallas Mavericks game, I heard Mavs owner Mark Cuban phrase perfectly the nature of the crisis.

"This,'' Cuban said, "is a Black Swan event.''

That is to say, an occurrence that is unpredictable and maybe unprecedented carrying with it potentially dire consequences. How does the NBA, and the rest of the sports world - and for that matter, the rest of us - prepare for and deal with "unpredictable'' and "unprecedented'' and "dire''? And how will the NFL - which doesn't have games right now but is still doing business - prepare?

What's next?

*First came the NBA's decision to suspend league play on Wednesday night after Utah Jazz star Rudy Gobert was found to have tested positive for coronavirus moments before the Jazz game at Oklahoma City. (Gobert recently made light of the coronavirus outbreak while speaking to the media, playfully touching and grabbing all of their recording devices.)

That game was not played. A later Wednesday game between the Sacramento Kings and New Orleans Pelicans was canceled soon after the announcement. That left Dallas as the final NBA site ...

"For a while,'' Cuban said.

One expert with Homeland Security experience explained to me that viruses like this aren't so much "medical challenges'' as "social challenges.'' That is, big crowds, brought together, in contact with one another. Again, the NFL doesn't have any of that right now ...

But the NFL Draft, scheduled as a massive party in Las Vegas, is just five weeks away.

*At the AAC, all involved downplayed basketball itself, though Mavs coach Rick Carlisle did note that while his team found out during the third quarter about the coming hiatus, "My thoughts were ‘we need to win this game.’”

Cowboys coaches and scouts and players and staffers have the right to think the same way. The games do matter. The work does matter. But if we look at this as a "social problem,'' the solution would seem to be to "be less social.''

The assumption can be that normalcy will eventually return. But are we being ignorant to think that full normalcy is acceptable presently?

*“The NBA will use this hiatus to determine next steps for moving forward in regard to the coronavirus pandemic,” the league said in its statement Wednesday night. In other words, there needs to be a plan related to the virus. And there needs to be a plan about resumption of play.

Here, the NFL has an advantage. It can get ahead of all of this in a way that the NBA could not.

While Cuban stressed that his immediate concern was about the health and safety of his family and beyond, he did add, "We have a lot of flexibility (in terms of scheduling and stretching the season on the calendar). I don’t want to speak for (Commissioner) Adam (Silver) or the NBA, but in terms of the NBA basketball side of this, we have a lot of flexibility because there’s nothing that happens after June 12 when we typically end our season.

"It’s more important for us to get it right.”

The NFL should abide by that same guideline.

*This does represent a financial crisis, on various scales. For the league and its players, there can be a ripple effect that causes a shrinkage in revenue streams and therefore in the salary cap. Lack sympathy for billionaires and millionaires? Fine - then consider the arena workers who figure to be out of work and short on income during this time.

Cuban, to his credit, immediately made that a consideration.

“When some of the things were coming up that we might not play games – this was (Tuesday) – I reached out to the folks at the arena and our folks at the Mavs to find out what it would cost to financially support people who aren’t going to be able to come to work,'' Cuban said. "You know, they get paid by the hour, and this was their source of income. So, we’ll do some things there. We may ask them to go do some volunteer work in exchange, but we’ve already started the process of having a program in place. I don’t have any details to give, but it’s certainly something that’s important to me.”

.@dallasmavs owner .@mcuban has already begun work on a plan to help arena workers financially affected by the .@NBA season suspension . “This is certainly something that is important to me.” #MFFL #Mavs pic.twitter.com/jt0PDFA1Yr
— Dorothy J. Gentry (@DorothyJGentry) March 12, 2020

(Read more on Cuban's leadership here.)

The playoffs were set to begin on April 18. Maybe basketball will be back by then, and paychecks big and not so big, can be back in place. And the same goes for other leagues, sporting events and places where large crowds gather.

Here, worth repeating, I think, the scoop on what the NFL's Dallas Cowboys are - and are not - doing so far in response to the crisis. ... Again, theoretically free to do as they please - though maybe they shouldn't be.

*It's NFL-instructive, I think that the Mavs have already started giving instructions to players. Cuban and Carlisle both said Mavs players have been told to stay in town, to recognize that "this is not a vacation,'' and to be "responsible.''

Said Carlisle: "We have laid down the basics as we know them. Everyone is to stay in town. That is one thing we told our guys. Games are suspended. Team activities are not.''

Said Cuban: This is effectively self-quarantining everybody.”

If that is sensible for Luka Doncic, then isn't it also sensible for Dak Prescott? And for Mike Fisher? We had a mini-vacation planned for this month in Florida. We cancelled it. Florida will be there later.

What to do about my late mother's "Celebration of Life'' in Colorado in June? Or the travel plans I literally just finalized (and paid for) that will throughout July and August take me from DFW to Oxnard to Canton to Oxnard and back to DFW?

Seems to me, the healthier we all stay now, the more likely that all of those trips will happen.

*Cuban's initial televised reaction upon seeing the news on his phone has created quite a stir. More valuable, we think, are his thoughts, as he shared them a few moments later.

"I have this saying,'' Cuban said, that 'Life is half-random.' This is the random side, where it takes twists and turns ... It’s stunning, but we are where we are. ... This is a pandemic, a global pandemic, where people’s lives are at stake. I’m a lot more worried about my kids and my mom who is 82 years old, in talking to her and telling her to stay in the house, than I am about when we play our next game.''

The Cowboys and the NFL, so often the leaders in American trends and thoughts and actions, have a great advantage here: The Mavs and the NBA, on the "what-to-do?'' issue of the coronavirus, just did their leadership for them.