NBA Considering ’25-Day Return To Basketball Window’ If Health Officials Give Clearance

As the NBA continues to ponder when the league will return to action amid the coronavirus outbreak, executives and trainers said Monday that the league is considering a “25-day return to basketball plan” if given safety clearance by health officials. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst made an appearance on Sportscenter Monday detailing the NBA’s idea to resume the regular season if certain criteria are met.

“What they’re looking at is a 25-day return to basketball window. Hopefully at some point they can enact it,” Windhorst said. “An 11-day series of individual workouts, where there’d be social distancing for a period of time, and then hopefully, if the clearance comes that they can play five-on-five basketball, a 14-day training camp.”

Commissioner Adam Silver previously stated that the league wouldn’t be able to make any decisions until May in a conversation with Inside the NBA host Ernie Johnson on April 6.

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“Essentially what I’ve told my folks over the last week is we should just accept that at least for the month of April we won’t be in a position to make any decision,” Silver said. “I don’t think that necessarily means on May 1st we will be, but at least I know, just to settle everyone down a little bit, it doesn’t mean internally – both the league, and in discussions with the teams and players – that we aren’t looking at many different scenarios for restarting the season. But I think it honestly is just too early given what’s happening right now to be even able to predict or project where we’ll be in a few weeks.”

Regardless of health officials’ recommendation of how long the NBA should be suspended, once the league is given clearance an additional 25-day plan will be executed before games can resume.