NBA Pushes Back Reopening of Team Facilities

While fans and athletes continue to wait for the return of professional sports to their respective playing surfaces at this stage of the game, there have been steps forward in a positive direction. It’s been close to seven weeks since the United States has seen any games from the NBA or NHL, while baseball postponed the start of their season. As it stands, things seem to be trending in the right direction but at least one league hit a bump, at least temporarily, that will slow things down for the short term.

Last week, NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the NBA was going to reopen team facilities in areas where the stay-at-home guidelines were being lightened and less restrictive on May 1. Under that plan, the team facilities would be able to be utilized by up to four players at one time with no coaches involved. For teams that are in more restrictive situations, the league was intent on finding alternative solutions in order to give the opportunity for those teams to get some work in and ensure that everyone would be on a level playing field.

That plan came to a screeching halt on Monday.

After the Atlanta Hawks balked a bit at the concept of re-opening their facilities for players to get back to action, the league released a memo Monday afternoon. Instead of facilities opening this Friday, the league has made the decision to push that back one week to Friday, May 8. With Georgia being one of the first states to loosen their restrictions on their population, the league was looking at Atlanta as one of the focal points of the early stages of the return to normalcy en route to getting back to normal.

Travis Schlenk, the general manager of the Hawks, made the following statement to ESPN about the team’s decision:

"We are going to wait and see what happens in the state over the couple weeks. If there's a positive response, we'll slowly open up. If it's a negative response, we'll make sure our staff and players remain healthy."

The decision by the Hawks isn’t all that surprising when you get right down to it. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has been widely panned for both his slow shutdown of the state and his seemingly quick reopening of the state despite the fact that the number of coronavirus cases and deaths continue to climb in the state. As of noon on Monday, there were 23,773 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 942 deaths in the state, with the number of new cases continuing to incline. Despite that, the state made the decision to reopen dine-in restaurants, theaters and social establishments on Monday.

Kemp has been criticized by mayors of cities and towns in his own state. His decisions have been questioned: last week after the announcement that things would be reopening, Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms made her thought process clear. "Stay home, nothing has changed. We are not on the other side of this. It's like we are in a tunnel, and rather than walking straight toward the light, we're spinning around in circles. We'll never get to the light if we don't continue to do what we've done thus far, and that's to separate ourselves socially from one another."

So, at this point, we remain in a holding pattern about the potential return of the NBA to the hardwood. While there is plenty of optimism in the fact that the league will return, obviously doing what’s best for everyone is the proper course of action. Hopefully, things start to go in a positive direction and by the end of next week, we’ll start seeing players returning to team facilities in the first steps toward getting back on the floor and seeing game action.