On March 11, the NBA became the first major U.S. league to suspend its season after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert became the first player to test positive for the novel coronavirus. Since then, the COVID-19 outbreak has swept across the U.S., grinding the economy to a halt after most states issued shelter-in-place orders.
In the intervening six weeks, NBA commissioner Adam Silver has indicated all options remain on the table as far as resuming the season, including playing games behind closed doors and isolating players to postponing the start of next season to allow the current campaign to be completed.
While Silver’s words have encouraged players and fans who still retain hope basketball will make a return this year, McGrady is at the opposite end of the spectrum. The former Orlando Magic and Houston Rockets star suggested resuming the regular season would pose logistical and health hazards and could also be detrimental to the players’ fitness.
“As a former player, I would be in favor of calling the season off,” he said on ESPN’s The Jump on Monday night.
“I just think there’s too much to go into having to start the season [back] up.
“As a player, I don’t have the facilities I need to stay in tip-top shape that I need to be in because everything is closed.”
McGrady, who spent 16 seasons in the NBA, added than even once training facilities re-open and players can train as usual again, it is going to take them some time to get back to what he described as “basketball shape”.
The only feasible solution to get players to be back to full fitness from a basketball standpoint was to allow them to train and then ensure they can fine-tune their fitness in a series of exhibition games, serving a similar role to that of the various summer leagues normally held before training camp.
While exhibition games would allow players to get near their best physical condition, they would also push the start of the regular season even further down the track, complicating what is an already difficult scenario for the league.
“You just can’t jump back into the regular season,” McGrady added.
“You’re going to have to have exhibition games to get players back in basketball shape. I just think it’s too much of a risk for players [to return to regular-season action immediately]. […] I just think it’s a loss of a season and I would rather start off as fresh, as we normally do, in October.”
Last week, Silver admitted “there was no clear path ahead” for the NBA to return.
“Based on the reports that we got from varied outside officials, current public health officials … we are not in a position to make any decisions,” the NBA commissioner said in a conference call with media on Friday, which followed a video conference meeting with the NBA’s board of governors.
“And it’s unclear when we will be.”
Earlier in the week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and a prominent member of President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force, suggested professional sports could only resume behind closed doors at first.
Silver, however, hinted those discussions were still too far ahead for the NBA to make a decision.
“We are not even at the point where we can say if only A, B and C were met, then there is a clear path,” he said. “I think there is still too much uncertainty at this point to say precisely how we move forward.
“I’ll add that the underlying principle remains the health and well-being of NBA players and everyone involved. We begin with that as paramount.”
As of Tuesday morning, nearly 788,000 cases have been reported in the U.S., by far the highest toll in the world. Over 42,300 deaths have been recorded in the U.S. and more than 73,500 people have recovered, according to Johns Hopkins University, which has been tracking the outbreak using combined data sources.
Over 170,400 people have died globally since the outbreak of coronavirus was first identified in Wuhan, a city located in China’s central Hubei province, late last year. There have been nearly 2.5 million confirmed cases globally and almost 653,000 recoveries.
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Medical advice
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Mask and glove usage
Healthy individuals only need to wear a mask if taking care of a sick person. Wear a mask if you are coughing or sneezing. Masks are effective when used in combination with frequent hand cleaning. Do not touch the mask while wearing it. Clean hands if you touch the mask. Learn how to properly put on, remove and dispose of masks. Clean hands after disposing of the mask. Do not reuse single-use masks. Regularly washing bare hands is more effective against catching COVID-19 than wearing rubber gloves. The COVID-19 virus can still be picked up on rubber gloves and transmitted by touching your face.
