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THE National Basketball Association (NBA) confirmed Saturday that talks are under way with Disney to restart the season this summer in Orlando, Florida.

League spokesman Mike Bass said the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association are “engaged in exploratory conversations” with The Walt Disney Company about a late-July restart at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex.

It would be a “single site for an NBA campus for games, practices and housing,” Bass said.

“Our priority continues to be the health and safety of all involved, and we are working with public health experts and government officials on a comprehensive set of guidelines to ensure that appropriate medical protocols and protections are in place,” Bass said.

The news of where and when comes amid a report of how the league plans to reopen. The Athletic reported Saturday that the league sent a survey to every general manager asking their opinion about how to restart the season. The survey went out Friday night, according to the report.

The options, according to the report:

1. Restart with the regular season en route to playing between 72 and 76 games total before proceeding to playoffs. GMs were also asked to vote on the number of regular season games to be played. All teams had played between 63 and 67 when the league put a pause to the season March 11 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

2. Restart straight to a 16-team, best-of-seven playoff.

3. A “playoff plus” option of adding teams, either through a play-in tournament or replacing the first round with a group stage. GMs were given several options for the number of teams as well as the format.

4. How late in the year should the season go, with the range of options from Labor Day through Nov. 1.

The NBA Board of Governors is scheduled to hold a call on May 29, according to the report.

STRAIGHT TO CAMPUS SITE
Meanwhile, at least four teams are asking the NBA to have players travel directly to the league’s proposed “campus” site to resume training rather than having them first come to the clubs’ home cities, ESPN reported Friday.

The NBA reportedly is looking at using one or a few venues to house multiple teams ahead of a resumption of play amid the coronavirus pandemic. Orlando and Las Vegas have been mentioned prominently as candidates to host teams in a bubble-like environment in which all players and staffers would receive regular COVID-19 tests.

At issue is the plan for teams whose areas have been hard hit by the pandemic.

According to ESPN, as part of a Thursday call with NBA general managers, the Boston Celtics, Brooklyn Nets, New York Knicks and Toronto Raptors were among the teams who stated their desire to avoid having players come back to their usual team training sites.

In theory, some players might need a quarantine period of up to 14 days before they would begin training at team facilities. They then might be subject to another quarantine stretch when the team heads to the site where it would resume games.

The NBA suspended its season March 11 when Utah Jazz All-Star center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19. Teams have played between 63 and 67 games in the 82-game regular season. — Reuters

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