NBA Season Suspended Indefinitely

[pancakes3]

Good read on how the NBA was so prepared against Covid 19

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/28925716/how-nba-moved-quickly-coronavirus-testing

[doclinkin]

Good read on how the NBA was so prepared against Covid 19

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/28925716/how-nba-moved-quickly-coronavirus-testing

I wish we had drafted Adam Silver to run for POTUS.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Update:

Disparate thoughts on causation. The key is don't spin or waste energy on negatives.

A couple links...plausibility I'm not concerned about either way.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1253701/Coronavirus-weapon-lab-biological-warfare-Iran-Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-conspiracy

https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/1253667/Coronavirus-theories-bioweapon-Wuhan-lab-COVID19-Bible-plague-prophecy-latest-news

I think this might have been engineered, it's perhaps man made.

Oh stop. No. Nature tries every door that’s all. MERS, SARS, H1N1— every few years there’s a new alteration of a previously existing pathogen. The only thing is now we hear about it quicker. And anxiety can become pandemic before the virus ever does.

Also as there are more people than ever and as the world is more connected by flights and shipping etc. we are in more contact with far flung parts of the world so any successfully virulent new strain can spread farther and faster before we develop herd immunity from antibodies etc.

Anyway nowadays evil operates right out in the open. What’s the point of hidden conspiracies? You might as well advertise directly and brand your virus.

Sent from my SM-A205U using RealGM mobile app

[Ruzious]

Update:

Disparate thoughts on causation. The key is don't spin or waste energy on negatives.

A couple links...plausibility I'm not concerned about either way.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1253701/Coronavirus-weapon-lab-biological-warfare-Iran-Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-conspiracy

https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/1253667/Coronavirus-theories-bioweapon-Wuhan-lab-COVID19-Bible-plague-prophecy-latest-news

I think this might have been engineered, it's perhaps man made.

Oh stop. No. Nature tries every door that’s all. MERS, SARS, H1N1— every few years there’s a new alteration of a previously existing pathogen. The only thing is now we hear about it quicker. And anxiety can become pandemic before the virus ever does.

Also as there are more people than ever and as the world is more connected by flights and shipping etc. we are in more contact with far flung parts of the world so any successfully virulent new strain can spread farther and faster before we develop herd immunity from antibodies etc.

Anyway nowadays evil operates right out in the open. What’s the point of hidden conspiracies? You might as well advertise directly and brand your virus.

Sent from my SM-A205U using RealGM mobile app

And don't waste time on ridiculous conspiracy theories.

[montestewart]

Update:

Disparate thoughts on causation. The key is don't spin or waste energy on negatives.

A couple links...plausibility I'm not concerned about either way.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1253701/Coronavirus-weapon-lab-biological-warfare-Iran-Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-conspiracy

https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/1253667/Coronavirus-theories-bioweapon-Wuhan-lab-COVID19-Bible-plague-prophecy-latest-news

Oh stop. No. Nature tries every door that’s all. MERS, SARS, H1N1— every few years there’s a new alteration of a previously existing pathogen. The only thing is now we hear about it quicker. And anxiety can become pandemic before the virus ever does.

Also as there are more people than ever and as the world is more connected by flights and shipping etc. we are in more contact with far flung parts of the world so any successfully virulent new strain can spread farther and faster before we develop herd immunity from antibodies etc.

Anyway nowadays evil operates right out in the open. What’s the point of hidden conspiracies? You might as well advertise directly and brand your virus.

Sent from my SM-A205U using RealGM mobile app

And don't waste time on ridiculous conspiracy theories.

Bioengineered? Recall that human feces is also man made. But has anyone ever seen the blueprints? There were already plenty of reasons to wash your hands.

Competing theories, sure, but some wear their agendas pretty loudly on their sleeves. Hard to know what to believe, but I'm inclined toward the views of people who have devoted their lives to studying, treating, and eradicating things like coronavirus. Actually helping people.

Such accumulation of knowledge and experience is boring to the short attention spans of most of us, so constituency-building politicians (Trump, Ahmadinejad, etc.), sensationalist tabloid journalists, wide-eyed pasty-faces who live in their parents' basement mushroom farm, etc. deliver a bioengineered version of knowledge and facts, because it's fun and apparently pays better.

Remember that one religious clown who predicted the exact day the world would end, and when it didn't, he just adjusted his calculations and kept his believers? Let's not all join that guy's church, OK?

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

The Church of Iknowwhen
.

Sent from my SM-A205U using RealGM mobile app

[LyricalRico]

Getting back to the possibility of the NBA playing again...

The league is exploring the feasibility of holding its entire postseason in Las Vegas, sources briefed on the NBA’s thinking told SI.com. A CNBC report last week theorized that the league could play best of five series’ in the first round and the Finals, with a one-and-done style tournament replacing the two rounds in between. A league source told SI.com that the NBA was nowhere close to formalizing anything, but added “nothing is off the table.”

https://www.si.com/nba/2020/04/02/nba-exploring-las-vegas-for-playoffs-coronavirus

Making sure all the players/coaches test negative, sequestering them in a single hotel, and playing televised games with no fans could work. But not sure why they're considering a 5 game series for the first/last rounds but with a sudden death tournament in-between. Seems like they'd do the one-and-done games first.

My current thought is to make every round best 2 out of 3. Since millions are stuck at home, they could play daytime quadruple headers every day - meaning each round takes a max of one week. Whole thing would be done in a month and for some stretches there would be elimination games almost daily. If they wanted to expand the Finals to 5 games it would basically add a 5th week.

I'd also add a play-in game for 8th/9th seeds in each conference. Not just cuz I want to see the Wizards play lol, but 1) gives fans elimination games right off the bat to generate excitement and 2) gives the league a sort of dry run to make sure their setup works.

[Ruzious]

Getting back to the possibility of the NBA playing again...

The league is exploring the feasibility of holding its entire postseason in Las Vegas, sources briefed on the NBA’s thinking told SI.com. A CNBC report last week theorized that the league could play best of five series’ in the first round and the Finals, with a one-and-done style tournament replacing the two rounds in between. A league source told SI.com that the NBA was nowhere close to formalizing anything, but added “nothing is off the table.”

https://www.si.com/nba/2020/04/02/nba-exploring-las-vegas-for-playoffs-coronavirus

Making sure all the players/coaches test negative, sequestering them in a single hotel, and playing televised games with no fans could work. But not sure why they're considering a 5 game series for the first/last rounds but with a sudden death tournament in-between. Seems like they'd do the one-and-done games first.

My current thought is to make every round best 2 out of 3. Since millions are stuck at home, they could play daytime quadruple headers every day - meaning each round takes a max of one week. Whole thing would be done in a month and for some stretches there would be elimination games almost daily. If they wanted to expand the Finals to 5 games it would basically add a 5th week.

I'd also add a play-in game for 8th/9th seeds in each conference. Not just cuz I want to see the Wizards play lol, but 1) gives fans elimination games right off the bat to generate excitement and 2) gives the league a sort of dry run to make sure their setup works.

And there's still the question of - should they allow people in the stands during the games? It's going to seem weird to go from not allowing anyone to enter the stadium to allowing packed houses. Maybe there could be some kind of compromise - like selling only every other seat?

[closg00]

Getting back to the possibility of the NBA playing again...

The league is exploring the feasibility of holding its entire postseason in Las Vegas, sources briefed on the NBA’s thinking told SI.com. A CNBC report last week theorized that the league could play best of five series’ in the first round and the Finals, with a one-and-done style tournament replacing the two rounds in between. A league source told SI.com that the NBA was nowhere close to formalizing anything, but added “nothing is off the table.”

https://www.si.com/nba/2020/04/02/nba-exploring-las-vegas-for-playoffs-coronavirus

Making sure all the players/coaches test negative, sequestering them in a single hotel, and playing televised games with no fans could work. But not sure why they're considering a 5 game series for the first/last rounds but with a sudden death tournament in-between. Seems like they'd do the one-and-done games first.

My current thought is to make every round best 2 out of 3. Since millions are stuck at home, they could play daytime quadruple headers every day - meaning each round takes a max of one week. Whole thing would be done in a month and for some stretches there would be elimination games almost daily. If they wanted to expand the Finals to 5 games it would basically add a 5th week.

I'd also add a play-in game for 8th/9th seeds in each conference. Not just cuz I want to see the Wizards play lol, but 1) gives fans elimination games right off the bat to generate excitement and 2) gives the league a sort of dry run to make sure their setup works.

And there's still the question of - should they allow people in the stands during the games? It's going to seem weird to go from not allowing anyone to enter the stadium to allowing packed houses. Maybe there could be some kind of compromise - like selling only every other seat?

Best 2 of 3 makes sense, but with no attendance, can't have people flying in from all over the country bringing who knows what at this point, it's too soon....even in June.

[nate33]

I caught Zach Lowe and Bill Simmons discussing this. They both felt it would never happen. The problem is, it would look really bad for the league to utilize the necessary medical staff to pull this off when that medical staff could be elsewhere saving lives.

[LyricalRico]

Read on Twitter

[BigA]

I caught Zach Lowe and Bill Simmons discussing this. They both felt it would never happen. The problem is, it would look really bad for the league to utilize the necessary medical staff to pull this off when that medical staff could be elsewhere saving lives.

If the projections on peak need for medical resources continue to trend positively, as they have since the weekend, this might not be an issue by the end of May.

One of the side effects of this crisis is that hospitals and medical facilities are laying off thousands of workers who aren't directly needed for COVID-19 response, since all visits/procedures that could be delayed have been.

IMHE Nevada Projections

[BigA]

Also, there's lots of potential for the NBA to spin good PR out of this if they can manage a 6-8 week postseason that starts in mid-June, IF it's done in a context where people are getting back to work and society is returning to normal.

[LyricalRico]

Also, there's lots of potential for the NBA to spin good PR out of this if they can manage a 6-8 week postseason that starts in mid-June, IF it's done in a context where people are getting back to work and society is returning to normal.

Agree in principle, but the 6-8 week timeline is too long IMO. They already established the precedent of completely shutting down after the very first positive test result from Gobert, so what happens if they resume and somebody else tests positive? They'll be gambling that nobody connected with the league tests positive for potentially a full two months, and if they start up only to stop again they'll look pretty stupid. (That's why I was trying to figure out a way to do it in a month or less, with the only extended series potentially being the Finals.)

Thinking more cynically, their best PR option might be to figure out a way to do everything in two weeks since that seems to be the incubation window of the virus. Essentially they could replicate the NCAA Sweet 16, with possibly 1 or 2 additional play-in games. They successfully take over TV for two consecutive weekends and any positive test results would come after everything was already over. And like you said, if that also coincided with other parts of society opening up, they'd have some cover.

Still have the question of whether to have or not have fans. Maybe free attendance for essential workers that have already recovered from the virus? They wouldn't be at risk, and gives them a chance to show appreciation to well-deserving folks. Not sure about the exact logistics of that, but that's all I can come up with so far besides playing in a empty gym (which nobody wants).

[payitforward]

I caught Zach Lowe and Bill Simmons discussing this. They both felt it would never happen. The problem is, it would look really bad for the league to utilize the necessary medical staff to pull this off when that medical staff could be elsewhere saving lives.

If the projections on peak need for medical resources continue to trend positively, as they have since the weekend, this might not be an issue by the end of May....

IMHE Nevada Projections

I would regard this as a very rosy view. Yesterday there were 25,000 new cases of Covid-19 in the US.

Of course, I hope it holds. But, I wouldn't be surprised if we were still in more or less the current situation 4 months from now. Not so much in the logistics of treatment but in the overall curve of the pandemic itself.

[Ruzious]

I think they should seriously consider having games with empty arenas. Have the players and people on the benches spread at least 10 feet from each other. If the tests are so readily available and easy to do by late May or June, have every participant tested before each game.

Be creative - maybe have a Zoom conference that fans can call into and have that amplified into the arena. Yes I am a genius, thankyou. Ooh, maybe charge a buck to everyone who calls in. 5 bucks for the finals. Hmm, this could add up. Proceeds go to families of victims - after I get my cut - since this was all my idea. Ok, 100% of it goes to the families.

[BigA]

I caught Zach Lowe and Bill Simmons discussing this. They both felt it would never happen. The problem is, it would look really bad for the league to utilize the necessary medical staff to pull this off when that medical staff could be elsewhere saving lives.

If the projections on peak need for medical resources continue to trend positively, as they have since the weekend, this might not be an issue by the end of May....

IMHE Nevada Projections

I would regard this as a very rosy view. Yesterday there were 25,000 new cases of Covid-19 in the US.

Of course, I hope it holds. But, I wouldn't be surprised if we were still in more or less the current situation 4 months from now. Not so much in the logistics of treatment but in the overall curve of the pandemic itself.

Maybe I'm too optimistic. But the number of cases is always going to partly be an artifact of the availability/protocols for testing. For me, hospitalizations and deaths are more useful metrics, even if they are lagging indicators. Next week or so we'll have a much better idea, I think.

[nate33]

I don't understand the latest Covid-19 predictions. They say it's going to peak in late-April/early-May and the new death count will drop to 0 at the beginning of June.

How is this possible? What is going to cause the absence of any new cases? If there are 60,000 deaths by June, and we maintain our current CFR of 3%, then there would only be 2 million cases. Heck, even if 4/5ths of cases are asymptomatic and aren't being caught in tests, that would mean it would take a total of 10 million cases to generate those 60,000 deaths. 10 million cases isn't nearly enough for herd immunity. You need about 200 million cases to get herd immunity in the U.S.

As far as I can tell, the moment we stick our heads out of quarantine, the progression of the virus will resume and it's back to quarantine we go. The only way we can keep that death rate zeroed out after June is if we stay in lockdown until a vaccine is ready. And that won't be for another year, at best.

[payitforward]

Hey -- hope you are right! But... I don't see how cases themselves can be an artifact of testing.

"Cases" are recognized instances of infection. & those are increasing at an extremely high rate. Viz. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/.

All the graphs have the same shape. &, new cases double every week. In the nature of things, that has to be the first curve to flatten, & it hasn't yet yet.

Moreover, the curve begins to assume its current shape about March 16. Nothing we are doing since then has flattened the rate of growth of new cases. The social distancing, etc. -- none of it has flattened that curve. Now... that doesn't mean what we've done has been ineffective: presumably without these measures the curve would have gotten steeper.

Still, until we see it actually flatten all we are doing is proceeding towards the moment when it flattens naturally & then declines -- i.e. when the number of candidates available to be infected (people who haven't yet been infected) drops significantly enough to impact the disease's ability to spread at the rate predicted by its RO.

Right now, the # of total cases in the US is @426,000. Something like that. Our population is @360,000,000. So we are far from the point where the curve begins to flatten naturally.

What is that point? Who knows? Not everybody who is exposed to the virus contracts it. How many exposures were required to produce 426,000 cases? Who knows?

[willbcocks]

Nate Silver on case counts: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/coronavirus-case-counts-are-meaningless/

Unless testing protocols and availability are held constant, case numbers are not reliable indicators of the virus's progression. Even new hospitalizations and death have issues as indicators, as hospital capacity may affect number of hospitalizations, and changes in cause of death reporting/capacity to handle death cases could impact their reliability as indicators.

But taken together, the statisticians have seen indications that the U.S. curve is flattening, which makes sense given the type and timing of measures taken. Predicting the future is incredibly difficult because of the political/economic/practical considerations of predicting mass behavior, not the infectiousness of the virus itself.