NBA “looking at every possibility” to get back playing NBA “looking at every possibility” to get back playing Posted by Charean Williams on April 6, 2020, 10:16 PM EDT Getty Images The NBA isn’t ready to return, and NBA Commissioner Adam […]
The NBA isn’t ready to return, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver expects it be at least May before the league can decide anything.
But Silver revealed during a conversation with Ernie Johnson of Turner Sports on the NBA’s Twitter account on Monday night that the league is exploring every possibility.
“We miss it badly,” Silver said. “To all the families watching this, I know the NBA is a big part of their lives. We just want to assure everybody that while we’re putting the health and safety of everyone first, we’re looking at every possibility to get our players back on the floor and to play NBA basketball again.”
The NBA became the first major American pro league to shut down after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19. The league’s regular season was supposed to end April 15 with the playoffs starting three days later.
Silver said the league will have to decide whether the regular season will resume in some form or head straight to the postseason. The NBA also is exploring whether to play in NBA arenas, practice facilities or to have all teams to go to one location to finish the season.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban broached the idea of a “bubble city” last week, with the entire league going to Las Vegas to finish the season.
Cities have expressed interested in hosting the entire league in one site, Silver said.
It is an idea PFT has said the NFL should investigate as an “what-if” option in case COVID-19 affects its games this fall.
Toronto FC president Bill Manning is not parading around the city these days dressed like a one-man band, with a guitar in his arms, cymbals between his knees and a harmonica strapped below his mouth singing all is well. Read More
Toronto FC president Bill Manning is not parading around the city these days dressed like a one-man band, with a guitar in his arms, cymbals between his knees and a harmonica strapped below his mouth singing all is well.
Manning is both realistic and pragmatic, and is quick to point out that he has no inside information as to when the 2020 MLS season will resume (or even if it will this year) or when team training will begin (last week, MLS extended the team training moratorium through April 24 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).
However, the two-time MLS executive of the year remains bullish that there will be a 2020 season and that MLS — a league that struggled big-time in its first few years of operation — will come out of the coronavirus crisis in good shape.
“I am (optimistic),” Manning told the Toronto Sun on Monday. “And I hope that we can play and play a full season. How that will look like and what shape it’s going to come in, I don’t know. (But) certainly in soccer you can play multiple games a week. With football that’s more difficult, though we do have bye weeks in the CFL that you can do away with it.
“So I am trying to stay optimistic,” he said. “But I’m also realistic that we don’t know the answer.”
Big celebrations were planned for MLS this season — its 25th season of operation. MLS is a league that many predicted years ago would not survive. But not only has it survived, it has thrived.
In recent years, franchise values have gone through the roof. Last year Forbes listed TFC as being worth $395 million.
Expansion fees have risen over the years, the newest MLS teams, Cincinnati and Nashville, paid $150 million to join in 2019 and 2020. (In 2012, Montreal Impact owners paid $40 million to join MLS).
Still, MLS is a gate-driven league and with the game, like pro sports around the world, on hiatus with no resumption date clearly in sight (May 10 at the very earliest), worries build as the COVID-19 crisis continues.
But Manning has faith in MLS leadership, particularly commissioner Don Garber, who has navigated the league through some very tough times, and the league’s ever-growing and loyal fan base.
“I think the league is a far cry from what it was in 1996,” Manning said. “Much like the other leagues, our intention is to get through this. I think the one thing about sports is, it brings communities together (and) I think MLS has really found it’s niche in the sports market place. It’s no longer a second-tier league. It’s there with some of the more established leagues because it’s found its place, its place in communities, and we’ve seen that with TFC.
“We’ll certainly get back, just like the NBA and the NHL, and hopefully be able to deliver a lot of fond memories for our fans because, after this, we’re all going to need a lot of good things to happen and to take place,” the Massapequa, N.Y., native continued.
As for his own club, Manning said it’s important that a routine has been set up as players adjust to self-isolation. In that regard, the club has set up video training and conferencing. Bikes, weights and other training apparatus have been sent to everyone. The players even get two meals delivered to their respective homes and condos every day, prepared at the BMO Training Ground by head chef Elaine Flamenco and her team.
“It’s just something again to try to keep a normal routine for our players because we always do a pre-workout meal and a post-workout meal,” Manning said. “(The chefs) come in and get sanitized after every cleaning and then they do it again. I think it’s really important our players get what they need and have that little bit of a sense of normalcy.”
Overall, Manning said the players are doing well and are staying on top of their fitness as best as they can. They’ve all remained in the Toronto area with the exception of two players — who were granted permission to return home — one to the U.S. and another to a different part of Canada (Manning did not want to reveal their names). Other than centre back Chris Mavinga, who lost an uncle in France to COVID-19, Manning said that the players and their families have remained healthy during the crisis.
“The guys for the most part feel positive, enthusiastic, they’re been in good spirits,” he said. “Obviously they want to get back to playing but for the most part it’s been a spirit of camaraderie that sometimes during things like this just brings people together.”
Like many people, Manning is champing at the bit hoping games will resume sooner rather than later.
“Sports are a luxury,” he said “But with that said, sports is also massively important to a lot of people and is a huge part of their daily routines. I can’t tell you how many texts and Emails I’ve gotten from different people just saying I miss my TFC and my sports.
“As much as the world doesn’t revolve around sports, certainly by any measure, it is a big part of people’s lives. I think that in some ways when the teams are back training again and games are being played, that’s when I think the community will be, from a psychological stand-point, in a much, much better place. Because you’re back to this normal world where you can go out and enjoy the teams.
“When that happens, that will be really good for the public.”
Even though the NBA has indefinitely suspended the 2019-20 season, Jayson Tatum has found a way to keep busy — and it’s much bigger than basketball. The Celtics forward has partnered with Washington Wizards star Bradley Beal, the Jayson Tatum Foundation, Feeding America and Lineage Logistics to pledge a combined $500,000 to the Boston and…
The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States and the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in South Korea occurred on the same day. In the two months since then the course of each country’s outbreak has been radically different.
As of a week ago, the United States was reporting around 15 times more confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths than South Korea despite having only about six times the population. South Korea has likewise reduced its rate of new daily cases to one-tenth of its peak while the United States likely won’t see its peak for some time.
The biggest factor in that disparity is that South Korea began ramping up testing more quickly and implementing preventive measures, such as school closures and stay-at-home orders earlier and in uniform, as opposed to piecemeal fashion as we have done in the U.S. South Korea is not out of the woods yet — they are currently bracing for a second wave of COVID-19 — but they flattened the curve more effectively and are thus ahead of us on the timeline.
It’s an interesting read, but my biggest takeaway from it is not necessarily about what we should have done vs. what Korea has done or anything like that. I mean, there are countless ways the United States has completely screwed up its COVID-19 response via incompetence and worse, but this ESPN article does not get into that in a super effective way, nor does it take into account various differences between the U.S. and South Korea, separate and apart from the competence of its leaders, which would likely have led to at least some level of disparate results regardless. That’a a topic best left to a more in-depth article.
No, my biggest takeaway is how precarious and uncertain the return of baseball is even in South Korea, where things have gone better than in most places. As the article notes, one sick player, one sick trainer, and the timeline will be pushed back farther. And even if that doesn’t happen, the normal acts of ballplayers — getting a new ball from the ballboy to the ump to the catcher to the pitcher — are all coming under new scrutiny and are cloaked in uncertainty and unease.
It’s the sort of thing that makes me seriously question whether professional sports can come back on anything approaching the timeline those in power are currently envisioning. And whether they should be coming back this year at all.
Atlanta Hawks star Trae Young is confident … or at least ready to play with Shaquille O’Neal. The second point guard appeared on Wednesday in the episode of O’Neal’s podcast “The Big Podcast with Shaq”. A moment later would go viral on Sunday. In the clip in circulation, O’Neal Young asked how many years it […]
The chances of the Maple Leafs landing Russian sniper Alexander Barabanov are back to 50-50 with only one other NHL team in the hunt. After the field was opened to more clubs last week via an interview process with agent Daniel Milstein, the choices for the KHL free-agent right winger are back to the original […]
The chances of the Maple Leafs landing Russian sniper Alexander Barabanov are back to 50-50 with only one other NHL team in the hunt.
After the field was opened to more clubs last week via an interview process with agent Daniel Milstein, the choices for the KHL free-agent right winger are back to the original front-runners, Toronto and the Arizona Coyotes. The term would be the same one-year, entry-level deal as Milstein client Ilya Mikheyev agreed to with the Leafs last summer.
“Alexander has had video meetings with those two teams, the head coaches, ownership, things like that,” Milstein said Sunday. “There are two options for he and his wife.”
Milstein said discussions and one-on-one interviews with his client and the Leafs and Coyotes actually go back more than two years.
“They both visited him in Russia,” Milstein said, adding that former Toronto coach Mike Babcock had made one of the first trips overseas, followed by general manager Kyle Dubas. “(Current coach) Sheldon Keefe has had conversations with him, too.”
Dubas sized up Barabanov on a conference call with Toronto media last week.
“Alex is strong, not tall (5-foot-10, 191 pounds), but he has tremendous playmaking ability, great skill level in tight. One of the other things we like most about him is his ability to make plays under pressure and his ability to win pucks, protect pucks when people come after him,” said Dubas.
The undrafted 25-year-old has played in his native Saint Petersburg since he was 16, moving up to its KHL club in 2014-15. A career-best 20 goals and 51 points in 73 games two years ago (regular season and playoffs) caught everyone’s attention on this side of the pond and he had 21 points in 47 games before COVID-19 halted the 2019 KHL playoffs.
At the spring 2019 world championship, he was on a line with Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov, adding to his comfort zone wherever he lands in the NHL.
“I expect his decision in a short time,” Milstein said. “Of course he and his wife are interested in what the two cities have (to offer as a home). But he’s here for the whole package; the hockey, how the coach sees him fitting in, the fan base, the traditions.”
Score one for the Leafs on that last point, but Arizona GM John Chayka is building a strong program. And if the Barabanovs are sick of snow, they certainly won’t need winter boots in Glendale.
“Alex is just a very nice guy, very humble, from a hockey family with two brothers,” Milstein said. “He’s very accomplished with a Gagarin Cup (in 2016-17 with Ilya Kovalchuk and Pavel Datsyuk as teammates) and Olympic gold (2018).”
MIK IN THE MIX
Milstein remains hopeful the Leafs and the NHL will come out of the COVID crisis and any salary cap changes with enough money to retain Mikheyev beyond his current deal.
The agent described those talks with Dubas as cordial, very encouraged the Leafs called him Jan. 1 at the first opportunity to offer a new deal, less than a week after Mikheyev’s frightening injury, a skate blade slicing his wrist that required major surgery.
“The Leafs lived up to their promise and we’ve talked a bit since,” Milstein said. “If not for the work stoppage, he could’ve played after March 19. He’s very interested in re-signing there.”
MORE BEEF ON THE FARM
The idled Marlies have not stopped signing players.
The Leafs’ American Hockey League farm team inked four newcomers the past few days, including Toronto native Noel Hoefenmayer to a two-year contract. The 21-year-old defenceman played 58 games with the Ottawa 67s as an over-ager with a career-high 56 assists and 82 points to lead all OHL defencemen. In his 298 games with Ottawa, the 6-foot-1, 196-pounder had 222 points. He was a fourth-round pick of Arizona in 2017.
Prince Edward Islander Jeremy McKenna also agreed to a two-year AHL contract, the 20-year-old also getting 82 points (40 goals, 42 assists) in 57 games last year with the Moncton Wildcats of the Quebec league.
Earlier in the week, forwards Gordie Green (Miami-Ohio) and Bobby McMann (Colgate) left the NCAA for two-year deals with the Marlies. The 5-foot-8 Green, from Ann Arbor, Mich., was team captain and had 36 points in 34 games and 115 career points at his school.
McMann, a centre, led Colgate with 20 points (10 goals, 10 assists) in 34 games while also serving as captain. The 6-foot-1 Wainwright, Alta., native was nominated for the Hobey Baker Award in 2019-20.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bobby Mitchell, the speedy Hall of Famer who became the Washington Redskins’ first black player, has died. He was 84. Mitchell split his career with the Cleveland Browns and Redskins and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1983. The Hall of Fame said Sunday night that Mitchell’s family said he […]
Canada set an NBA record for most non-American players on opening-day rosters this season. There were 16 in all, as well as four more on two-way contracts, meaning they could split time between the NBA and its development league, the G League. Two more Canadians got called up during the year. In the coming weeks…
Canada set an NBA record for most non-American players on opening-day rosters this season. There were 16 in all, as well as four more on two-way contracts, meaning they could split time between the NBA and its development league, the G League. Two more Canadians got called up during the year. In the coming weeks we’ll continue to take a look at how the brightest lights of this golden generation of Canuck hoopers fared in 2019-20.
Next up, new Golden State Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins, of Vaughan, ON.
RECAPPING THE SEASON
Season 6 was definitely the oddest one for the former NBA rookie of the year and No. 1 overall draft choice. Yes, even stranger than being drafted and playing summer league ball for Cleveland, who didn’t have LeBron James, then being moved shortly after James decided to return home.
Andrew Wiggins got off to a fantastic start for the Minnesota Timberwolves, looking like a potential all-star in November, when he averaged 27.1 points, 4.1 assists and 1.4 blocks per game in 11 appearances on 48% shooting, including 39.5% work from three-point distance. The most scrutinized Canadian prospect ever had gone through ups and downs for years, but finally appeared to have broken through. But his production slipped from there, the Timberwolves again were one of the league’s worst teams (an injury to star big man Karl-Anthony Towns didn’t help) and, under new management, the Wolves decided to make a big move. D’Angelo Russell, a close friend of Towns, was brought in from Golden State, with Wiggins and some draft considerations going the other way.
All of a sudden, all of the pressure and expectations Wiggins had dealt with for his entire career evaporated. As head coach Steve Kerr has said, Wiggins was looked at as a saviour in Minnesota after being the key return for Kevin Love and then being given a massive contract. Now, he just needed to fit in and play his role.
Yes, the formerly great Warriors were a mess, with the NBA’s worst record, but they are a great organization with a culture of winning and will be in the mix next year when Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are back to 100%. Wiggins only ended up getting one game in alongside Curry (a loss to Toronto), but told us during that visit that he was loving life in the Bay Area and with the Warriors. It showed on the court, where Wiggins started to score a bit less (19.4 points per game in 12 appearances), but expanded his overall game, doing a little bit of everything. Like early in the season in Minnesota, Wiggins defended (1.4 blocks and 1.3 steals), rebounded (4.6 per game) and moved the ball well (3.6 assists, though his turnovers were a bit high). He got to the free throw line more often than ever before and his advanced metrics were nearly uniformly career highs.
He looked happy and he looked comfortable.
Wiggins has teased before. He is more athletic than nearly any other NBA player and can score in bunches, but has always fallen back to earth and been inconsistent. This year was the most encouraging of his career on those fronts and something he can build on moving forward.
FUTURE OUTLOOK
Speaking of which, life should be pretty great for Wiggins whenever 2020-21 kicks off. He’ll average about $31.5 million U.S. on the final three years of his contract, but, besides that, he’ll be playing with two of the five best shooters in the history of the NBA, along with Draymond Green and potentially the first pick of the 2020 draft. The game should be easy for him and he’ll get to show off his new-found and still improving play-making skills. “When we’re whole, we’re going to have a lot of shooting out there, we’re going to have the floor spaced and he’s going to be tough to handle,” Kerr said when the Raptors were in town. “It bodes well for next year when he’s playing with two of the best shooters on earth,” Kerr said on The Full 48 podcast recently.
A Wiggins has only made the playoffs once, but the Warriors should be a shoo-in, if healthy for a long time to come. And Kerr’s particularly enthused about what Wiggins can do on defence. He believes Wiggins, 6-foot-7, with long arms and that renowned athleticism, can at least slow down superstars like Kawhi Leonard and LeBron James better than most other players if they meet in the playoffs.
The Warriors have a huge fanbase, so Wiggins will become more of a household name in more than just Canada. Will he play for the national team again sometime? Head coach Nick Nurse thinks so and so does Canada Basketball’s braintrust. Time will tell on that front.
THE BEST OF WIGGINS
The top outings of Andrew Wiggins’s 2019-20 season:
Date Opponent Summary
1/27 Sacramento 36 pts, 9 reb, 8 assists in fourth-last game with Wolves.
11/8 Golden State 40 pts, 5 reb, 7 assists against future teammates.
02/12 Phoenix 27 pts, 5 assists, 4 blks in impressive early Warriors game.
11/11 Detroit 33 pts, 6 reb, 5 assists on 60% shooting.
11/13 San Antonio 30 pts, 8 reb, 7 assists, 4 three-pointers.
12/13 L.A. Clippers 34 pts on 60% shooting against Kawhi Leonard’s team.
01/18 Toronto 18 pts, 11 assists, 10 reb for first career triple-double.
03/05 Toronto 21 pts, 10 2 blocks in lone game with Stephen Curry.
03/03 Denver 22 pts, 5 reb, 10 assists in a win over an elite team.
United States President Donald Trump held a conference call with commissioners of the 13 major U.S. sports leagues Saturday, saying he believes the 2020 NFL season should start on time. He’s also hopeful spectators will be allowed back in stadiums and arenas in August and September, but who’s to say if that’s an accurate timeline,…
United States President Donald Trump held a conference call with commissioners of the 13 major U.S. sports leagues Saturday, saying he believes the 2020 NFL season should start on time. He’s also hopeful spectators will be allowed back in stadiums and arenas in August and September, but who’s to say if that’s an accurate timeline, as we’re all at the mercy of the coronavirus outbreak. For California’s governor, that feels like a long-shot.
“I’m not anticipating that happens in this state,” Governor Gavin Newsom said on MSNBC. “We’ve all seen the headlines over the last couple days in Asia where they were opening up certain businesses. Now they’re starting to roll back those openings because they’re starting to see some spread. There’s a boomerang.”
Newsom’s biggest concern is setting a concrete date prematurely amid an unprecedented period of uncertainty. That’s why, when people in the sports world have reached out to him with questions, he’s urged them to be careful and not jump the gun.
“One has to be very cautious here, one has to be careful not to overpromise,” Newsom said. “It’s interesting, I have a lot of friends that work in Major League Baseball and in the NFL. They’ve been asking me, in fact, a well known athlete just asked me, a football player, if he expects to come back. I said, ‘I would move very cautiously in that expectation.’ Look, I’m not here to second guess anybody, but I am here to say this. Our decision on that basis, at least here in the state of California, will be determined by the facts, will be determined by the health experts, will be determined by the capacity to meet this moment, bend the curve and have the appropriate community surveillance and testing to confidently determine whether or not that’s appropriate. And right now, I’m just focusing on the immediate, but that’s not something I anticipate happening in the next few months.”
The first coronavirus case in the state of California was reported on Jan. 25 with 12,573 cases reported and 282 deaths, according to the New York Times.
New York has been one of the epicenters of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. As of Saturday, New York City had accounted for more than 1,900 deaths, according to the latest tracking data from Johns Hopkins University.
With hospitals overwhelmed, medical workers are running low on the personal protective equipment (PPE) necessary to keep themselves protected from the virus. That’s what makes the latest gesture from the NBA and the two local teams, the New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets, all the more important.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that the league, in collaboration with the Knicks, Nets and China’s Consul General Huang Ping, is contributing one million surgical masks for the state’s essential workers.
“New York thanks you,” Cuomo wrote on Twitter. “We are beyond grateful for this gift of critically needed PPE.”Andrew Cuomo✔@NYGovCuomo
NEW: The @NBA is contributing 1 million desperately needed surgical masks for New York’s essential workers in collaboration with @nyknicks, @BrooklynNets and China’s Consul General Huang Ping.
New York reported 630 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday, the deadliest day thus far. Earlier Saturday, Cuomo announced the donation of 1,000 ventilators from the Chinese government.
The New England Patriots sent their team plane to China this week to pick up 1.2 million masks, with an additional 500,000 on the way. Owner Robert Kraft sent 300,000 of those masks to New York.
The view from left field 