Adam Silver on NBA restart plans in bubble: ‘It will entail enormous sacrifice’

NBA commissioner Adam Silver spoke about the league’s restart plans.

In response to growing opposition to the league’s plans to restart in late July, NBA commissioner Adam Silver appeared on ESPN Monday evening to address concerns over the proposed bubble.

While the NBA’s board of governors voted to approve those plans by an overwhelming 29-1 majority, in the last week or so, several prominent and veteran players have begun to voice their issues with the league’s planned restart, from coronavirus concerns, to issues with the limitations on family members allowed in the Orlando bubble, to the simple fact that during this time of civil unrest, the last thing our country needs is the distraction sports provide.

A coalition led by Kyrie Irving and Avery Bradley has voiced these concerns and is calling for unity among the league’s players, but there are several problems on the other side as well — and not just from the NBA and its money-making perspective, but also from the players themselves.

It’s already been reported the league will not force players on the 22 selected teams to show up in Orlando, nor will there be any punitive action taken against them (aside from not being paid for those games). Silver reiterated that stance on Monday, saying that playing in this bubble “may not be for everyone” and “will entail enormous sacrifice.”

Adam Silver is correct on that front, but his statement veered off later on.

Silver is right to acknowledge that asking players to reside in this bubble — for months on end, for the teams that make it deep into the postseason — with limited family members around, constant testing and a mandatory 10-14 day quarantine for anyone who leaves the bubble requires a lot of sacrifice on their part. While those measures are a necessity to keep everyone involved safe, it’s also fair for the players to wonder if all these potential problems are really worth it.

However, where Silver’s message lost its impact was when he started speaking on COVID-19 itself:

"“It’s more a sense from the entire NBA community that we have an obligation to try this, because the alternative is to stay on the sidelines … in essence give in to this virus,” he said."

This is kind of a gross statement to make about a virus that has killed hundreds of thousands of people in this country already, including the mother of Minnesota Timberwolves star Karl-Anthony Towns. COVID-19 has no agenda, it has no goals, it has no motivation — it’s a non-sentient virus that does one thing and one thing only.

“Giving in” to a deadly virus would be allowing it to spread unchecked, without precautionary measures. It would also be allowing it to spread at all, if we’re strictly talking about how a virus can “win.” This shouldn’t be about the NBA winning or losing when there are literal lives on the line, especially during this time when a predominantly Black league is outraged, conflicted and devastated by what’s happening in this country since the murder of George Floyd (and long before that).

One can argue NBA players would have a major platform to make their statement for social justice were they to return, but that ignores the coronavirus concerns and all the other issues these players are raising. It also misses the point: This decision should ultimately come down to what the players decide to do, since they’re the ones putting themselves at risk during a global pandemic while also trying to figure out how to make the message of Black Lives Matter as strong and clear as possible. This is the time for discussion, and hopefully they will be able to take a unified stance on it either way, but that decision should be theirs and theirs alone.

That is the biggest reason Silver’s latest comments miss the mark — while he is far and away the best commissioner in any major U.S. sports league, and truly does care about his players’ concerns and maintaining this dialogue, the NBA is inherently, first and foremost, focused on making money and recouping its recent losses. Disguising it as some altruistic “fight against coronavirus” isn’t what this is about, even if we all miss our sports dearly right now.