First Las Vegas was believed to the leading candidate to host NBA teams in a" campus-like" atmosphere. Then on May 8, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told players it would one or two locations _ Las Vegas and Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. _ with no fans. But The Athletic reported Wednesday that Disney World was in serious discussions with the NBA and appeared to be the front-runner to be the sole spot to host teams.
Less than 24 hours later, the commentary is back to both Las Vegas and Disney World potentially being locations.
"I think it will literally be one or two sites," Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry said Thursday on CNBC. "I think just to make it easier for everybody, it will probably be two sites.
"Maybe have the West on the Vegas side, and the East on the Orlando side."
He's referring to the Western and Eastern conferences. Lasry, who is also chairman and CEO of Avenue Capital, said the league is getting closer to resuming play. He expects the league owners to discuss the resumption during their May 29 Board of Governors meeting. The league office is expected to issue guidelines to allow teams to start recalling players, who left their market, around June 1, according to ESPN. At that time, teams are expected to receive a timeline for when they can expand individual workouts.
"But I think with players coming back, I think right now the momentum seems to be shifting," Lasry said. "And we should have something, in the next six to eight weeks we should be playing."
That confirms what has been expectation that, if the NBA season does resume, it would in July, with training camp beginning in June.
The league isn't ruling out resuming the season with regular-season games. Teams in small markets want to finish the season to secure TV revenue. The threshold to receive TV revenue from regional sports networks is 70 regular-season games. NBA teams have played an average of 64.7 games this season.
