The NBA has indefinitely suspended its season, and it sounds like there's no guarantee that it ever recommences.
After a Utah Jazz player tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) ahead of their game against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday night, the NBA made the decision to suspend the season indefinitely. The Athletic's Shams Charania reported Wednesday night, citing sources, that the player is center Rudy Gobert.
Sports Illustrated's Chris Mannix joined NBC Sports Boston's "Boston Sports Tonight" following the league's announcement, and implied that there's a decent chance that the season never resumes.
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"They had an owners' call early in the day where several owners expressed their support for the idea of shuttering the season for the foreseeable future. Most of the owners on that call were more in favor of letting this thing play out with empty arenas. But there was growing support for shuttering the doors.
The people I've talked to tonight, they don't have any idea how long this is going to last, and if I had to characterize it any way, there's not a lot of optimism that this season is going to be able to be resumed. There's more of a sense that -- and they're getting this from their own medical experts -- that there's a real possibility that this gets worse countrywide before it gets better.
And if it continues to get worse, they're not going to come back and play in front of arenas. Now they've pulled the pin on the nuclear option, I do not believe based on my conversations they're going to come back and say, 'Alright, we're going to play games in empty arenas, smaller venues, just go get the TV games on the air.'"
Wow.
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It's hard to believe the NBA season could disappear just like that, but given the seriousness of the situation, the league must take every possible precaution.