Should the NBA return this season?

A Few NBA Stars Have Made it Clear They Want the Season to Return - But There Are Many Other Factors to Figure Out First

Transcript

00:00 NBA players have been informally surveyed about whether they want to return to the season.

00:13 For more, I'm joined by our senior writer Chris Mannix.

00:16 And Chris, doesn't this sort of question need more context than simply yes or no, whichever

00:21 way you were going to respond?

00:23 Yeah, among the players that I've talked to, that has been a consistent response.

00:28 In general, the vast majority of players want to resume the season, if for no other reason

00:33 than their obvious financial concerns when it comes to playing versus not playing.

00:39 But there are a number of pieces of information that they still don't have at this point.

00:44 They don't know where they're going to be located in playing.

00:47 They don't know how long they're going to be quarantined in said place and how many

00:51 members of their family are going to be able to be quarantined with them, if any at all.

00:56 And maybe most importantly, there still has not been a concrete policy that's been laid

01:01 out where we know what happens when somebody tests positive for coronavirus, because that

01:08 is viewed at NBA circles as an inevitability if the NBA season ultimately resumed.

01:14 So there's a lot of concrete things that need to be ironed out before players can really

01:20 say one way or the other whether they want to return.

01:23 How much influence do the superstar players have?

01:25 Because we've heard LeBron James and Durant and Curry and Kawhi Leonard, the NBA Avengers,

01:29 if you will, saying they're establishing a united front to return, at least the reports.

01:34 Yeah, Yahoo Sports reported that there was a call amongst the elite level players.

01:39 And look, it certainly is influential.

01:42 But in circumstances like this, and I've noticed this when it comes to collective bargaining

01:46 agreement negotiations as well, there's no real-- it's not a huge influence, right?

01:52 Like everybody kind of has their own ideas, and everybody's looking out for themselves.

01:55 So star players certainly wield a big bat amongst some, but ultimately, I think players

02:01 are going to decide for themselves how they want to handle this.

02:04 Chris, appreciate your time as always.

02:07 Got it.

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