Yesterday, we learned that the NBA is the closest they’ve yet been to a resumption of play.
The Athletic confirmed Disney World as the frontrunner to host league play. And later on, ESPN reported Commissioner Adam Silver’s plans to release a set of guidelines around June 1st that could act as the first formal step toward a continuation of the 2019-20 season. For more on all of that surprisingly good news, go here.
While there are still a ton of logistics to understand, the most intriguing is the timeframe. Of course, we all want to know how the league will keep their players safe, which teams will participate in league action when play does resume, and how the end of the season/playoffs will work out. Buuuuuuut, more immediately, we want to know when the actual basketball games will be aired live. It’s been a while. We want a date to circle.
So far, we know – vaguely – that the NBA wants to use June as a preparation month, with informal workouts and an eventually formal “training camp,” before games re-start sometime in mid-July. But there hasn’t been many specifics. Today, however, we inch closer to an actual date.
And that date is July 15th:
Many around the league have been buzzing about the same rough timeframe described in this tweet … practices that would launch one month from now … with an NBA season resumption date in the July 15 range … https://t.co/iHFoPniNGI
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) May 21, 2020
Like everything else, nothing can be truly confirmed at this time, but this is certainly further confirmation that *literally* mid-July is the date to keep in mind.
Even if this doesn’t end up being the exact date, this at least gives us further confirmation that a mid-July return is what we should be expecting. Plus, in general, it’s just reassuring to know the talk within league circles is heavily focused on some kind of resumption. Again, an unprecedented time means anything can happen, but the more people begin to talk about it, the more likely it is to happen.