Chris Mannix On What's Next For The NBA
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00:00 With the NBA season on hold until further notice,
00:03 the league is reportedly looking at resuming its season
00:05 possibly in mid-June,
00:07 and then running the playoffs and finals into August.
00:11 Sports Illustrated's Chris Mannix joins us now.
00:13 And Chris, an NBA season, playoffs in the summer
00:16 is starting to look like a strong possibility.
00:19 Let's talk about the impact first on the players here.
00:21 How would this type of move in scheduling
00:24 affect them the most?
00:25 - Well, I think the biggest impact comes
00:29 with just what kind of condition these guys are in.
00:32 And I mean, really what their injury issues are like
00:36 when they come back.
00:37 I mean, this is absolutely uncharted territory
00:40 for a lot of these guys.
00:41 And if there are teams you look at
00:43 like the Philadelphia 76ers,
00:45 who have one of their stars, Ben Simmons,
00:47 dealing with a significant back injury,
00:49 did they benefit from a long layoff
00:51 that resumed with the playoffs?
00:53 You have other teams that were playing extremely well
00:55 going into this break, like the Lakers,
00:57 coming up, they're two of their biggest wins of the season.
01:01 How do they respond after a long layoff?
01:03 There are just a lot of unknowns
01:05 about how players' bodies and games are gonna respond
01:08 if the NBA comes back after more than two months.
01:11 - Chris, August is traditionally a dead time of year
01:14 for sports on television.
01:16 What would the NBA finals in August
01:18 do to television ratings?
01:20 - Well, it's a great question,
01:22 and one that I think there are a lot of owners out there
01:25 that are eager to know the answer.
01:27 As most people that follow basketball know,
01:29 Steve Coonan, top executive with the Atlanta Hawks,
01:33 he has pitched the idea of starting the NBA
01:36 at Christmas time and running the NBA season through August.
01:40 Now, one of the big pushbacks to that
01:42 has been that ratings tend to go down in August,
01:45 and television networks don't wanna see
01:48 their biggest, most high-profile games
01:51 shown in front of shrinking audiences.
01:53 If the NBA's forced to play games,
01:56 play significant games, into July and August,
01:58 this will provide an invaluable set of data
02:03 that league officials can study
02:04 and make a determination of maybe
02:06 this is the kind of schedule they wanna use going forward.
02:09 - With the new CDC recommendations of eight weeks now
02:14 for gatherings of more than 50 people,
02:17 we don't know how long that's gonna get pushed back,
02:19 Chris, obviously, but when it comes to going further
02:22 and further into this summer,
02:24 we've talked a little bit about June
02:25 and possibly the finals in August.
02:27 Is there a drop-dead date where the NBA
02:29 just simply could not complete the season?
02:32 - Well, in talking to league officials,
02:34 they haven't discussed that at this point.
02:36 They are quite literally taking this one month at a time.
02:40 Obviously, the new CDC guidelines
02:42 establish a new timeline,
02:44 that being the middle of May, effectively,
02:47 before NBA basketball could even conceive of coming back.
02:50 But they acknowledge that is going to be something
02:54 that will be discussed.
02:55 But there are a lot of things
02:56 on the table right now, Ryan.
02:58 There's the subject of paying players.
03:00 I mean, at some point, NBA owners are gonna say,
03:02 "We're losing all this money.
03:04 "We can't keep paying players their full salary
03:07 "all throughout the summer."
03:08 So there are a lot of things going on
03:10 in the league office right now,
03:12 and I mean, they're just trying
03:13 to take it one day at a time.
03:15 - Yeah, as we all really can at this point.
03:17 So much speculation, so much still unknown
03:20 when it comes to the world of sports
03:21 and the effects, of course, of the coronavirus.
03:23 Sports Illustrated's Chris Mannix.
03:25 Thanks, Chris.
03:26 - You got it.
03:27 (upbeat music)
03:30 (upbeat music)