NBA commissioner Adam Silver says league's return model was 'designed' to handle unexpected coronavirus spikes

Adam Silver.
(Image credit: Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

The NBA is gearing up to resume its season in an Orlando bubble in July, but Florida's recent COVID-19 spike has people wondering if the plan is actually feasible.

Commissioner Adam Silver told Time on Tuesday that while it's "never full steam ahead no matter what" when it comes to the coronavirus, he's fairly confident the league will be able to start play again. Silver believes the NBA's plan was "designed" to handle unexpected coronavirus spikes, and the point of having all the teams congregate at one campus — in this case Disney's ESPN Wide World of Sports — was to protect players, coaches, and other employees from community spread, even if they didn't quite expect "the kind of increases" several places, including Florida, are experiencing right now.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.