Houston Rockets guard Austin Rivers has responded to Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving, who says the return of the NBA would negatively affect the Black Lives Matter movement. Rivers says he doesn't see the correlation.
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"Us coming back would put money in all of our (NBA players) pockets," Rivers continued. "With this money, you could help out even more people and continue to give more importantly your time and energy towards the BLM movement. Which I'm 100% on board with. Because change needs to happen and injustice has been going on too long."
"I love Kyrie's passion towards helping this movement," Rivers continued. "It's admirable and inspiring. I'm with it ... but not at the cost of the whole NBA and players' careers. We can do both. We can play and we can help change the way black lives are lived. I think we have [to]! But canceling and boycotting [a] return doesn't do that in my opinion. Guys want to play and provide and help change!!!!"
Reports have surfaced that Irving is against the NBA resuming. He told The Athletic, "“I’m not with the systematic racism and the bullshit. Something smells a little fishy.”
Former NBA player Stephen Jackson has also expressed his disapproval of the league returning in July.
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Stephen Jackson Disapproves Of NBA Return: "Now Ain’t The Time"
Stephen Jackson does not support a return of the 2019-20 NBA season in July.
Former NBA player Stephen Jackson says the league is jumping the gun with it’s return to action in July, claiming “now ain’t the time.”
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Jackson says the return of the NBA will shift the conversation away from social justice and police reform: “I love the NBA man, that’s my family,” Jackson told fans in a video uploaded to Instagram. “But now ain’t the time to be playing basketball y’all. Now ain’t the time. Playing basketball is gonna do one thing, take all the attention off the task at hand right now and what we fighting for.”
“Everybody gonna be worried about the playoffs, they gonna have that blasting all over the TV, and nobodies gonna be talking about getting justice for all these senseless murders by these police and nobody’s gonna be focused on the task at hand,” he continued. “None of these white owners have spoken up, none of ’em are taking a stand. Yeah, they might post a video when the season start of saying what we should do, but they ain’t doing nothing.”
Current NBA player Kyrie Irving has expressed similar sentiments, telling The Athletic, “I’m not with the systematic racism and the bullshit. Something smells a little fishy.”
“I’m willing to give up everything I have [for social reform],” he added.
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Adam Silver Discusses The NBA’s Return With Players
Adam Silver discussed the logistics of an NBA return with the league's players, this week.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver spoke with player representatives from the National Basketball Players Association, which included executive director Michele Roberts, NBPA president Chris Paul and a number of other players, regarding the logistics of the league's return.
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"This could turn out to be the single greatest challenge of all our lives," Silver warned, noting that 40% of the league's revenue comes from game night earnings.
Silver pointed that that "The CBA was not built for extended pandemics," explaining that future salary caps and basketball-related income could be affected by the situation.
The commissioner went on to say that the league could resume playing from a single arena to limit air travel: "There's no point in adding risk for flying all of you city to city if there's not going to be fans," Silver said. "We think it would be safer to be in a single location, or two locations, to start."
Silver plans to return with a full-playoff run, but is considering play-in tournaments, which would give more teams a chance to compete who were robbed of a late-season playoff push.
"Until there's a vaccine, or some cocktail preventing people from dying from the virus, we are going to be dealing with this collectively," Silver told the players. "The ultimate issue is how much risk we're all comfortable taking."
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NBA Considers Delaying 2020-21 Season Until December: Report
The NBA is discussing delaying the 2020-21 season until as late as December.
Adam Silver and the NBA board of governors discussed the postponement of the 2020-21 season until December, on Friday.
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ESPN reports that the league prefers to wait until fans will be able to purchase tickets to as many games as possible before beginning the 2020-21 season.
"If you start in December, that doesn't mean the people are coming back in December, but maybe they're back by March," one member of the board of governors tells ESPN.
The future of the 2020-21 season relies heavily on if and when the current NBA season returns. Rumors regarding the all-together cancelation of the season provoked a response from Lakers' Star Lebron James on Twitter, this week: "Saw some reports about execs and agents wanting to cancel season??? That’s absolutely not true. Nobody I know saying anything like that. As soon as it’s safe we would like to finish our season. I’m ready and our team is ready. Nobody should be canceling anything."
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver spoke with reporters regarding the return of the season, last month: "I think there is still too much uncertainty at this point to say precisely how we move forward. I'll add that the underlying principle remains the health and well-being of NBA players and everyone involved. We begin with that as paramount."
Discussions regarding the 2019-20 and 2020-21 season will continue.
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Adam Silver Provides Latest Update On NBA Season’s Future
Adam Silver’s latest update on the future of the 2019-20 NBA season is still vague.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver provided ESPN with an update on if and when the league may resume activity, Friday. His update is bad news for NBA fans.
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“Based on the reports that we got from varied outside officials, current public health officials … we are not in a position to make any decisions,” Silver said. “And it’s unclear when we will be.”
Silver says he intends to resume the season at some point to avoid a complete cancelation. As for now, the league is monitoring the availability of testing, the number of new infections, and updates on a potential vaccine.
“There is a lot of data that all has to be melded together to help make these decisions,” Silver said. “That is part of the uncertainty. We are not even at the point where we can say if only A, B and C were met, then there is a clear path.
“I think there is still too much uncertainty at this point to say precisely how we move forward. I’ll add that the underlying principle remains the health and well-being of NBA players and everyone involved. We begin with that as paramount.”
Silver also says the number of players who have tested positive for COVID-19 is higher than initial reports; however, he did not expand for privacy reasons.
“We are looking at all those things right now,” Silver said. “I’d say that in terms of bubble-like concepts, many of them have been proposed to us and we’ve only listened. We are not seriously engaged yet in that type of environment because I can’t answer what precisely would we need to see in order to feel that that environment provided the needed health and safety for our players and everyone involved.
“I know it’s frustrating — it is for me and everyone involved that I am not in position to be able to answer the question. … There is still enormous uncertainty around the virus as well. Now there is a lot that is changing quickly and we may be in a very different position some number of weeks from now. But it is why I initially announced at the beginning of April that I felt with confidence we would not be able to make any decisions in the month of April. I should clarify that I didn’t mean to suggest that on May 1 I would be in a position.”
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