Adam Silver on NBA restart plan: ‘It may not be for everyone.’ Also, Heat bonus watch
With a faction of players pushing back against the NBA’s plan to restart the 2019-20 season amid the COVID-19 pandemic, NBA commissioner Adam Silver admits it “may not be for everyone.”
The NBA’s restart plan calls for 22 teams to finish their seasons in the coming months at a fanless quarantine-type environment just outside of Orlando at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex. Teams will begin to arrive at Disney on July 7 and training camps in the Central Florida bubble will run from July 9-29 and will include three scrimmages per team, with the season restarting on July 30 and ending in October.
“I can only say it may not be for everyone,” Silver said to ESPN’s Mike Greenberg in an interview that aired Monday night as part of the network’s “The Return of Sports” special. “I mean, it will entail enormous sacrifice. On behalf of those players and for everyone involved — the coaches, the referees. Listen, it’s not an ideal situation. We’re trying to find a way to our own normal in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of essentially a recession or worse with 40 million unemployed, and now with enormous social unrest in the country.”
One of the big issues players have with the current plan: Family and guests of teams will have to wait until Aug. 30 to enter the bubble, when there is enough room for them after teams eliminated from the playoffs have left. That means players, coaches and staff will have to be without family for nearly two months.
Participants will also have to adhere to strict health and safety protocols while in the Disney bubble, including a reported rule that would force players who exit the bubble to quarantine for at least 10 days upon reentry. The long list of health protocols are still being worked on, as ESPN reported Monday that “a 125-page health and safety manual detailing the step-by-step protocols” is expected to be sent to teams early this week.
Among the other issues players have with the NBA’s return-to-play plan is the belief that games will distract from the Black Lives Matter movement, along with the risk of contracting COVID-19 and the injury risk that comes with returning to an eight-game regular season and playoff action following a four-month hiatus.
“As we work through these issues, I can understand how some players may feel that it’s not for them,” Silver said. “... It could be for a host of reasons. It may be for family reasons, it may be for health reasons they have or maybe because they feel as some players have said very recently, that their time is best spent elsewhere.
“Among those players, my sense is we’re going to be able to work through most of those issues over the next few weeks. But as I said, we also have an arrangement with the Players Association where if a player chooses not to come, it’s not a breach of his contract. We accept that.”
The NBA will allow players to opt out of the bubble plan and they will not be penalized for staying home. But those players will not be paid for missed games.
Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Iving was one of the leading voices in a Friday night call that included nearly 100 players to discuss the pros and cons of returning to play, and ESPN reported “Irving made an impassioned plea for players to make a stand and sit out the season’s resumption in Orlando.”
There has not been significant pushback from the 17 players on the Miami Heat’s roster on returning to complete the season, according to league sources, with most players already indicating they want to play when games resume at Disney. But there are some on the roster who are waiting for details and health protocols surrounding the NBA’s plan to be finalized before they make a final decision.
As expected, there are players who want family and friends to be allowed inside the NBA’s bubble sooner than Aug. 30, according to multiple league sources. Restrictions that players will have to live under in the quarantine bubble are also a concern.
The NBA plan requires all players to return to their team’s market by Monday, but there are still plenty of details surrounding the rest of the plan that need to be worked out.
“We’re dealing with extraordinary circumstances,” Silver said. “Not that anybody is forgetting, but this is an incredibly unique circumstance. And what we’re trying to do has never been done before as far as I know, to find a way to create our own sense of normality through all these incredibly difficult societal forces.
“For us, you know, we feel that this is what we do: We put on NBA basketball. We think that for the country, it’ll be a respite from enormous difficulties people are dealing with in their lives right now. I also think in terms of social justice issues, it’ll be an opportunity for NBA players in the greater community to draw attention to the issues because the world’s attention will be on the NBA in Orlando if we’re able to pull this off.”
HOW WILL HEAT’S PLAYER BONUSES BE HANDLED?
The NBA shutdown and an abbreviated regular season has forced many things to change, including how the league handles player bonuses.
According to ESPN, the NBA has decided to prorate performance bonuses using March 11 (the day the season was suspended) as the end date of the regular season. The eight seeding games in Orlando will not be counted as part of the formula.
Two Heat players who have bonuses in their contracts are Solomon Hill and Kelly Olynyk.
Hill entered the league shutdown with 992 minutes played this season, eight minutes short of a $531,614 bonus for playing 1,000 minutes. With the NBA deciding to base performance bonuses on games played through March 11, Hill will be awarded this incentive because the minutes criteria decreases to 793 with the number prorated over the Heat’s 65 regular-season games played, and Hill has already surpassed that mark.
For Olynyk, he’s owed an extra $400,000 if the Heat clinches a playoff spot and an extra $1 million if he plays at least 1,700 minutes this season. Miami has clinched a playoff spot under the NBA’s current restart plan, so Olynyk is expected to get his playoff bonus. But Olynyk has played 1,089 minutes this season, which means he won’t earn the incentive tied to his minutes. The minutes criteria prorated over 65 games is 1,348, and Olynyk did not reach that benchmark.
This story was originally published June 16, 2020 at 9:09 AM.
