Today, we should all be basking in the afterglow of another come-from-behind win by Tiger Woods at The Masters, but golf’s first major tournament was postponed because of SARS-CoV-2.
So was Major League Baseball. And the National Hockey League. Heck, even the Professional Bowlers Association called off its tournaments.
The National Basketball Association was the first of the major sports to postpone its season, which followed the diagnosis of multiple players with COVID-19. But now there’s reportedly a plan to put the NBA’s season back on track.
No, there’s no date yet on when the league will return to the hard court, but when the coronavirus begins to wane — which many experts believe will happen sooner rather than later — the NBA will be ready.
“According to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst on Sunday, the league has a ’25-day plan’ that would kick in after the league sets a return date from the coronavirus-induced layoff and would conclude with players ready to play regular-season games again,” Newsmax writes.
“They’re spending a lot of time getting a back-to-basketball plan ready,” Windhorst said during a TV interview of what league officials have been working on in recent days.
“What they’re looking at is a 25-day return-to-basketball window,” he continued. .”.. . An 11-day series of individual workouts, where there’d be social distancing for a period of time, and then hopefully … a 14-day training camp.”
The NBA called off its regular season on March 11. Commissioner Adam Silver has said that the league won’t decide on when to return until at least May 1.
When play resumes, teams have about a month’s worth of the regular season left, followed by about two months of playoffs. If the NBA doesn’t re-start until June 1, that means a champion might not be decided until September. The normal NBA season begins in October, but the commissioner said that date may move as well.
The NBA shut down the season after the Utah Jazz’s Rudy Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus. Several other players, including Kevin Durant of the Brooklyn Nets, as well as four teammates, and Detroit Pistons player Christian Wood eventually tested positive too. By March 20, some 14 players had contracted the virus.
No one knows when any of the major sports will return. “[B]aseball sources who spoke to NBC News say the different contingency plans to start the 2020 baseball season during the coronavirus pandemic are shortsighted at best, with one source saying: ‘We’re in the pregame stretch with any of these ideas. We’re not even close to the first inning.’ The sources spoke on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing discussions between MLB and the players’ union,” NBC News reported.
The NHL is still hoping to hold the Stanley Cup Playoffs this summer but is waiting for the right time to restart the season. The league might trim down the number of remaining games and truncate the playoff schedule, possibly changing best-of-seven series to best-of-five or even best-of-three.
As for the Professional Golfers’ Association, The British Open has already been canceled and won’t be held until 2021. But the PGA Championship has been rescheduled to Aug. 6-9 at TPC Harding Park, the U.S. Open is set for Sept. 17-20 at Winged Foot, and finally, The Masters will be held Nov. 12-15 at Augusta National.
Look for Tiger to win all three of those.