The Portland Trail Blazers represented the only team to vote “no” at the NBA's Board of Governors meeting to approve the league's proposal to resume the 2019-20 season on July 31 in Orlando, Florida.
Blazers shooting guard CJ McCollum backed up a claim already reported that the owner, currently Jody Allen, the sister of late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, on behalf of the franchise listened to player feedback against the proposal.
“We play for an ownership group that actually listens to its players and has a backbone,” the 28-year-old former Most Improved Player award winner wrote on Twitter on Thursday afternoon. “We voiced what we felt was the best option and they followed our lead. I commend our front office and Jody Allen.”
We play for an ownership group that actually listens to its players and has a backbone. We voiced what we felt was the best option and they followed our lead. I commend our front office and Jody Allen. https://t.co/mAj5EzeiUh
— CJ McCollum (@CJMcCollum) June 4, 2020
McCollum joins Blazers star point guard Damian Lillard as a vocal opponent against the NBA's now-approved proposal to resume the season with 22 teams all congregating in a centralized location, Walt Disney World, to prevent the possible transmission of COVID-19 and limit travel and exposure. Lillard previously made headline-grabbing statements calling games in a resumed 2019-20 season as “meaningless.”
Portland, 3.5 games back from the Memphis Grizzlies for the eighth spot in the Western Conference playoff picture, however, will have to return and re-start the season in spite of a low probability of reaching the postseason. One year ago the Golden State Warriors eliminated McCollum and the Blazers in sweep fashion in the 2019 Western Conference Finals.
Now, the Blazers could finish the strange season with a four-month-long hiatus due to the coronavirus global public-health crisis as a pseudo-playoff team that may not make the postseason after all.
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