As Covid ravages through sports leagues despite high rates of vaccination, NBA commissioner Adam Silver says the league has no current plans to pause the season.
American sports leagues have taken very different approaches to combatting the virus. The NHL recently announced all games would be paused through at least Dec. 26 and the NFL implemented new Covid protocols that include drastically less testing of vaccinated players.
“No plans right now to pause the season,” Silver told ESPN’s Malika Andrews on NBA Today. “We have of course looked at all the options, but frankly we are having trouble coming up with what the logic would be behind pausing right now.”
“As we look through these cases literally ripping through the country, let alone the rest of the world, I think we’re finding ourselves where we sort of knew we were going to get to over the past several months, and that is this virus will not be eradicated, and we’re going to have to learn to live with it. I think that’s what we’re experiencing in the league right now.”
After keeping Covid at bay for the first few months of the season, the NBA was forced to postpone seven games over the past week. ESPN analyst and former NBA coach Jeff Van Gundy recently predicted the league would need to pause its season, but Silver seems intent on fighting through the current wave of
The NBA led the way for a nationwide shutdown in March 2020, when the league paused its season after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for Covid. With 97 percent of its players vaccinated against Covid and nearly 65 percent having received the booster shot, the NBA represents a strong test case for the rest of the country. According to Silver, very few breakthrough cases have involved players or staff who received the booster shot.
Watch above via ESPN.