NBA commissioner Adam Silver admitted there is a threshold for cancelling the season.
The number of positive tests this week isn’t it.
On Thursday, the NBA announced that 25 of 351 players have tested positive for the coronavirus.
In addition, testing of 844 team staff members found just 10 positive results.
The positivity rate of less than 3 per cent is well below the 7.1 per cent rolling seven-day national average and good news for a league that plans to bring the players, coaches and staff of 22 teams to a “bubble” environment in Orlando, Florida next week.
Earlier this week, Brooklyn, Denver and New Orleans reportedly closed their practice facilities due to positive tests, while cases in Florida have dramatically spiked recently.
Silver knows the virus can end the NBA’s bold plan.
“(It’s) never ‘full steam no matter what,’” he said in an interview with Time magazine. “One thing we’re learning about this virus is that much is unpredictable.” 
Silver does not know what that threshold is, however.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “Certainly, if we have a lot of cases, we’re going to stop. You cannot run from this virus.
“I am absolutely convinced that it will be safer on this campus than off this campus, because there aren’t many other situations I’m aware of where there’s mass testing of asymptomatic employees.
So in some ways this is maybe a model for how other industries ultimately open.” 
READY TO GO: No coach’s future is tied more to the resumption of the season than Brett Brown.
In his seventh year with the Philadelphia 76ers, Brown has guided the team through the lean years of “The Process” into contention, fuelled by All-Stars Joel Embiid of Cameroon and Ben Simmons of Australia.
Embiid’s lack of conditioning has been a factor in second-round playoff exits the last two years but is in better shape this year, Brown said on Wednesday.
“There is nobody on our team that has put in more time than Joel Embiid,” he said. “I’m proud of him, I respect him.
He needed to do it, we understand the impact he can have on our team.”
The usually durable Simmons suffered a nerve impingement in his lower back in February that he rehabilitated during the season’s hiatus while adding muscle. “I feel a lot more control when I’m out there on the floor and knowing what I’m capable of with my body,” Simmons said on Thursday. “I just feel like I’m back to 100 %. It’s just a good feeling.” 
It is rumoured that a third straight early postseason exit could end Brown’s tenure in Philadelphia.
Related Story