Mavs owner Mark Cuban took to Twitter on Thursday morning to clarify his comments about the potential return of the 2019-20 NBA season.
As part of an interview with WFAA earlier this week, Cuban offered an optimistic timeline for a potential return to play. The Mavs owner predicted that the league could “start to get back to normal” by mid-May:
“I’m proud of the NBA and the way we’ve reacted,” Cuban said in the interview, via The Dallas Morning News.. “We’ve led the way and hopefully will lead the way out of this. No one has perfect information right now, so all decisions are tough, but if I had to guess based off the people I’ve talked to at the CDC and other places, I would say that the over-under [for the league’s return] would be June 1 and I’m taking the under.
“Hopefully by the middle of May we’re starting to get back to normal and the NBA is playing games, maybe not with fans, but we’re playing games.”
Mark Cuban: ""Hopefully by the middle of May, we're starting to get back to normal and the NBA is playing games."#Mavs #NBA @WFAA @WFAASports pic.twitter.com/rs7NGIPsqI
— Mike Leslie (@MikeLeslieWFAA) March 24, 2020
On Thursday, Cuban changed his tune a bit, noting that doctors and health officials will have the final say in the NBA's decision to return from the coronavirus suspension. However, the Mavs owner is still hopeful the NBA will be back in May:
“Just to clarify, everything I say is always qualified with a statement that it will depend on what doctors and scientists say,” Cuban wrote in his tweet. “That said, I'm more hopeful than I was two weeks ago about us being able to return and play in front of no fans prior to June 1.”
The NBA decided to suspend the 2019-20 regular-season campaign earlier this month after Rudy Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus. Donovan Mitchell was diagnosed shortly after, and a number of others have tested positive as well.
Shortly after the NBA's decision to suspend the season, Cuban announced that he was taking steps to ensure that hourly employees of his organization would continue to receive pay during this hiatus:
Mark Cuban will put a program together to take care of Mavericks’ employees making hourly pay who will be out of work due to the coronavirus. pic.twitter.com/a2iapZP4hZ
— Football Digest (@FootbaIIDigest) March 12, 2020
These are uncertain times in the sporting world, with games and events canceled around the globe due to COVID-19. Ultimately, though, these organizations have made the right decision.
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