The Last Dance documentary airing on ESPN is definitely whetting the appetite of sports enthusiasts everywhere, but the need to watch actual live games has increased since the suspension of the NBA season. According to a report on ESPN, there may be a potential plan to restart the NBA season at Florida’s Walt Disney World Resort.
Former Disney CEO Bob Iger recently joined the NBA’s remote Board of Governors meeting in which he presented how Walt Disney World is handling the current coronavirus pandemic. There have been talks about housing all the teams in one central location and thereby using multiple venues on the 25,000-acre property and that thought process has been gaining momentum throughout the discussions with the NBA.
The notion of housing all the teams in one location does not appear to be a sticking point for the league’s brass, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski:
“Regardless of the location, conversation around the league has circled around the G League Showcase as a single-site template.
“For the past two years, the Showcase has been held at MGM’s Mandalay Bay and has accommodated 28 teams. Under that setup, five courts are placed in a convention center — two for games and three for practices — with all of the teams staying at connected hotels under the same roof.
“But experts recommend clustering teams into smaller groups as an extra safeguard against the spread of infection. Teams might need to stay and play in separate locations.”
The league will evaluate and look over all options, and sources said it has rejected the concept of quarantining players without family members.
“There are so many layers that would have to come into play for [a bubble] to even happen,” Chris Paul, president of the National Basketball Players Association, said last week. “We would have to know exactly what that would look like. There’s a lot of hypotheticals out there.”
Las Vegas has also been touted as a destination as well, with MGM Grand being one of the suitors to host the NBA games. The thought process relates to how the NBA G League Showcase utilizes the site as a single-site template.
For the past two years, the Showcase has been held at MGM’s Mandalay Bay and has accommodated 28 basketball teams. Using that setup, five courts are placed in a convention center — two for games and three for practices — with all of the teams staying at connected hotels under the same roof.