Uncertainty about next season "continues to have key people in NBA circles left to guess at when the 2021 season will begin," according to Dan Woike of the L.A. TIMES. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver earlier this week said the season likely would not start until January at the earliest. Sources indicated that both the NBA and its players "believe another significant amount of time spent in a bubble is a non-starter." One veteran NBAer said, "No way we’d ever agree to it" (L.A. TIMES, 9/24). Meanwhile, in Chicago, Paul Sullivan writes one thing he hopes to see in '21 is the NBA schedule "moving to summer." He writes, "After watching this year's playoffs ... I'm more convinced than ever that moving the regular season from a fall-winter schedule to a spring-summer schedule is the way to go." A "perfect opening night would be Feb. 9, a couple of days after the Feb. 7 Super Bowl." The regular season "would go through the end of July, with the playoffs running from the first week of August through early October" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 9/24).
CAVS OPTIMISTIC ON SOME FANS: Cavaliers CEO Len Komoroski said, "The effort there is how to optimize playing 82 games with a full schedule with as many fans as possible and there’s an amazing amount of effort of that going on. … We’re starting to see fans coming back in sports venues in Ohio and we’re optimistic and hopeful that by the time we get around to our season, those numbers will continue to grow, and that’s really the effort and initiative of our league as well” (“The Exchange,” CNBC, 9/23).
MISSING THE MARK: ESPN's Rachel Nichols noted women in America "owe a gigantic debt" to late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, "something the WNBA recognized with a lovely video tribute" before the Las Vegas Aces-Connecticut Sun's playoff game on Sunday. Nichols: "It was surprising then, and disappointing frankly, when the NBA chose not to do the same despite that it was just last month the league held such meaningful moments of silence for not just politician and civil rights icon John Lewis, but actor Chadwick Boseman. If you are a league that holds equality as a core value, and I know for sure that this league does, the icons of that equality can’t be just those who helped the men that we all see on TV, but those who paved the way for the women who work right alongside of them" (“The Jump,” ESPN, 9/21).
