Get ready for a few months without Boston Celtics — or perhaps any — basketball.
The suspension of NBA activities previously estimated to run a minimum of 30 days might continue nearly twice that length based on new guidelines recommended by the Centers for Disease Control reported on by multiple sources.
The guidelines, which recommend no gatherings of any kind of more than 50 people, would prove a logistical nightmare for even the closed-door, audience-less option floated by some as an alternative to cancelling games.
When one considers the number of coaching, support staff, broadcast crew and reporters, even a skeleton crew of the most lean construction would still likely exceed those guidelines.
What this means for league interest in trying to resume the 2019-20 season in some form is unknown, but it certainly doesn’t make them easier.
If there is going to be some sort of recoupment of regular-season games and/or a postseason, the CDC recommendation would limit them to starting some time after the 10th of May. There’s also no guarantee the guidelines will change at that time.
While it’s still too early to say definitively that a resumption of the league’s schedule in some form is off the table, it’s looking like it won’t be as soon as many had hoped at the very least.
With radical proposals for ideas like starting the season on Christmas starting to look like a fait accompli regardless of how we feel about the situation, abnormal basketball ecosystem functioning may be the new normal for the foreseeable future.
But then what about our lives may not be in these times?
With the pandemic rapidly changing all of our lives in dramatic ways, adaptability may simply have to become a quality of quotidian life.
