NBA's chances of resuming season growing dim, says ESPN analyst
League, players' association reportedly discussing deal to end 2019-20 campaign
The NBA's chances of resuming the 2019-20 season due to the global coronavirus pandemic are growing smaller, ESPN's Brian Windhorst said.
Speaking late Friday on "SportsCenter," Windhorst said NBA owners are increasingly pessimistic that play will resume this season. As a result, the league and the NBPA are discussing a deal to end the season officially.
"They're not having talks to restart the league," Windhorst said. "They're having financial talks about what would happen if the season shut down and I think there's a significant amount of pessimism right now."
The NBA was suspended indefinitely on March 11 after all-star centre Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz tested positive for COVID-19.
The league has been following the movement of the Chinese Basketball Association, which shut down early this year and had hoped to resume play soon. But on Thursday, the Chinese government put an end to that idea.
"A big reason was what happened in China where they halted the return of their league," Windhorst said.
"They believed if they just tested the players' temperatures all the time that it would work, and the Chinese are finding that asymptomatic carriers are causing a second wave in that country."
Game of H-O-R-S-E anyone?
A staple of driveways everywhere, a H-O-R-S-E competition among top NBA players could be coming to national television in the near future, ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported Saturday.
The NBA and ESPN are finalizing the details, with each player possibly participating from their own home gym, as person-to-person interaction is limited during the coronavirus pandemic.
In a typical game of two or more players, if a competitor makes a shot, the competitor to follow has to make the identical shot or earn a letter in the word "horse." A player is eliminated when their collection of missed shots spell "horse."
Renewed interest in the game was sparked in 1993, when Larry Bird and Michael Jordan played a game of H-O-R-S-E during a McDonald's commercial created for the Super Bowl.
In 2009, the NBA introduced a version of the game during All-Star Weekend festivities, although it was called G-E-I-C-O. It lasted two years and Kevin Durant, then of the Oklahoma City Thunder, won both times. The Phoenix Suns' Paul Westphal also won an NBA-sanctioned game of H-O-R-S-E during the 1977-78 season.
The league has been creative during the suspension of the season due to the pandemic. It began a players-only NBA 2K Tournament on Friday, with the top-seeded Durant falling to 16th seed Derrick Jones Jr. of the Miami Heat in the opener.
