In a live interview on Wednesday night with ESPN’s Rachel Nichols, NBA commissioner Adam Silver offered key insights into how the league has handled the ongoing coronavirus disease pandemic and how it intends to move forward.
As overarching themes, Silver stressed two core points.
First, the NBA is mindful that its fan base consists of many young people. This is an age group that public health officials warn isn’t taking the pandemic seriously. News coverage of college students downplaying the virus while on spring break seems to evidence that point. Silver maintains that the NBA can play an instrumental role in promoting sound public health among these young people, some of whom seem inclined to discount public health warnings as irrelevant to their own well-being (even though they could infect their parents and grandparents, who may be much less able to withstand the virus).