Will the NBA finish the 2019-2020 season? Ja Morant votes yes

By , Daily Memphian Updated: May 13, 2020 8:15 AM CT | Published: May 12, 2020 4:47 PM CT

On Tuesday, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the National Basketball Players Association began polling its membership about whether they want to try to finish the 2019-2020 NBA season. The Player’s Association later put out a statement saying no such poll was being conducted. Regardless, Grizzlies point guard Ja Morant let the world know how he’d vote:


There has been some belief that the NBA would send a signal this week about the league’s path forward amid an ongoing coronavirus-spurred suspension of the 2020-2021 season. In recent weeks, protocols have leaked out about measures that teams would have to take to open practice facilities for voluntary player workouts and/or the testing of asymptomatic players, opening up these options for teams in states/cities that have loosened social distancing restrictions (voluntary workouts) and which have full testing capacity for frontline health workers (player testing). 


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But a reported conference call last week between NBA commissioner Adam Silver and the league’s players seems to have prompted more questions and doubts than it did illuminate the path ahead. 

In that conference call, Silver reportedly reinforced that gathering participating teams at one or two group sites (Orlando or Las Vegas, most likely) remains an option under consideration, but the meeting does not appear to have resulted in momentum toward a resumption of the season. Whichever path the NBA takes, the availability of widespread coronavirus testing has been seen as a prerequisite for moving forward with some level of play.

On Tuesday, The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported the NBA and the Player’s Association were forming a working group to discuss “return-to-play strategies.” That seemed to get momentum back on track. A new call with Silver on Tuesday night, this time with the league’s Board of Governors, representing team owners, has reportedly but the NBA back on a more optimistic path toward finished the 2019-2020 season. A decision about how to proceed is expected in the next two-to-four weeks. 

Whether any return scenario would include regular season games or move directly to the playoffs, whether it would include all 30 teams or a smaller group, whether it would happen in a “bubble” or in a looser setting are all unknown. So is how testing would be administered and the impact on games from positive tests. The only thing that seems to be certain: Fans will not be in attendance. 


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The Grizzlies were in eighth place in the Western Conference standings, and in line for a playoff spot, when the season was suspended.

As for practice facilities and testing, the Grizzlies would likely meet both city and NBA requirements to move forward, but do not appear to have done so yet. Team representatives have declined comment on these matters, and any opening of the facilities to players at this time would be voluntary. It seems unlikely the Grizzlies — or any other team — would (or could) call players back to work without a clearer path toward playing games. 

One possible peek behind the curtain to the discussion likely happening among NBA players comes from Lakers forward Jared Dudley, one of the league’s savviest vets and someone particularly outspoken on social media about the league resuming games later this summer.


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Earlier in the week, asked about players not wanting to continue the season, Dudley tweeted that, “They don’t understand the ramifications for the following season. NBA players are much younger than any other sport. We are at a place right now where it’s about health, as it should be. The more data we have, the more you can show how safe it really is. It’s coming.”

When the news of a possible player poll leaked, Dudley followed up with this: 


The public- and player-health complications of resuming play are significant, and so is the economic impact to the league, which will be significant now regardless of the path ahead. 

A collapse in league revenues — Silver reportedly suggested game-night-related gate receipts amounted to 40% of team revenues — will create chaos in a financial system built on the notion of stability and growth amid largely guaranteed contracts. NBA player salaries, writ large, are tied to league revenues, with individual player salaries subject to an escrow system designed to navigate small departures from projected league revenues. But the league’s collective bargaining agreement — the CBA of Dudley’s tweet — wasn’t structured with a disruption this massive in mind. 

“The CBA was not built for an extended pandemic,” Silver told players on the call, per ESPN reporting. 


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With rapidly declining revenues amid generally guaranteed contracts, the current system could lead to some teams facing suddenly massive Luxury Tax bills. Other teams — largely different teams — who benefit from the league’s revenue-sharing system could face big hits when there’s less revenue to share. The latter is likely a particular concern for the Grizzlies. 

The road ahead for the NBA — on the court and on the spreadsheets — is enormously complicated. And trying to finish out this season may be ultimately secondary to figuring how to proceed with a 2020-2021 season. But plenty of the league’s stakeholders will want to find a path to play this summer. Count Ja Morant among them. 

Topics

Memphis Grizzlies Ja Morant NBA

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Chris Herrington

Chris Herrington

Chris Herrington covers the Memphis Grizzlies and writes about Memphis culture, food, and civic life. 


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