Silver expresses cautions confidence about restart plans during an appearance at the Fortune Brainstorm Health virtual conference.
There will be more positive tests among NBA players. Of that Commissioner Adam Silver is relatively certain.
It’s how many and when they occur that will make the difference.
“That’s more a representation of what’s happening around the country… virtually none of them were in Florida at the time that testing began,” said Silver, referring to the announcement last week that 25 of 351 players tested for the coronarvirus between June 23 and July 2.
“And so, we won’t be surprised when they first come down to Orlando if we have some additional players that test positive. What would be most concerning is once players enter this campus and then go through our quarantine period, then if they were to test positive, or we would have any positive tests, we know we would have an issue.”
With the clock ticking on the NBA’s much-anticipated and unprecedented restart later this month at Walt Disney World’s ESPN Wide World of Sports complex, Silver fielded questions Tuesday from Adam Lashinsky, the executive editor of Fortune during the Fortune Brainstorm Health virtual conference.
The commissioner expressed cautious confidence that the mitigating efforts that will be put in place to protect players in Orlando — the commissioner resisted calling it a “bubble,” because it won’t be a hermetically sealed environment — will work.
The NBA has planned a 22-team, eight-game wrap-up to the regular season, to be followed potentially by play-in tournament for the eighth seed and then, the playoffs. It all starts July 30, when the Lakers and Clippers will meet for the fourth time this strange season.
“When we set it up down this path, in terms of coming back and in Orlando, Florida was not experiencing case levels that the rate they are now; and Orange County, where Orlando is, was not,” said Silver, alluding to an escalating coronavirus tally that’s led to 213,794 positive results in the state, or nearly 1 out of 100 people.
