NBA by mid-June?

By Guillaume Mahot

Between the NBA of commissioner Adam Silver, US president Donald Trump and health officials, agreements on a possible return of the league are rather hard to reach, even though everyone knows that NBA (and any other kind of sport) will be able to take back its rights as soon as the pandemic issue is over.

One month ago, NBA was suspended due to the infection of French center Rudy Gobert (Utah Jazz) who contracted the coronavirus disease without being that careful, which led him to be criticized for such a behavior. Many other players, like Marco Belinelli (San Antonio Spurs) or Donovan Mitchell, his teammate in Salt Lake City, put the blame on him (at first, remember, the Frenchie had taken that disease for a joke and was making fun of it in a press conference, although he did not know he was infected at that time). Since then, Rudy Gobert tried to redeem with public apologies, he also gave more than 500 000 dollars to struggle against the pandemic. Other players like Kevin Durant (Brooklyn Nets) were hit by the virus, and sport became everything but a priority.

The United States is today the country that has been the most severely hit by the coronavirus disease, with more than 533 000 confirmed cases and more than 20 000 deaths, before Spain and Italy, where the pandemic appeared earlier. In spite of such figures, President Donald Trump is willing to come back to normality as soon as possible, in economy as well as in sports. This being said, Adam Silver does not think so and, more logically, is referring to health officials before resuming any activity. A return in mid-June was evoked, and many other leagues in the world worked on the subject as well (especially in football), but political decisions, consequences of what science and health services recommend, will (and should) prevail.

Africa Global News Publication