NBA eyes Bahamas as next season’s venue

Premier basketball league promises safe games amid COVID-19

The Bahamas could become the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) next lair to host its next regular season.

In an article by the ESPN, the NBA is considering the idea of a centralized location. Aside from Las Vegas, the players and executives saw a potential in the Caribbean island.

Before COVID-19, NBA teams train in their facilities and play in their arenas. But this could prove a challenge in the future, especially with escalating health concerns gripping the world.

The NBA arrives to this option as it closely watches the next steps of its Chinese counterpart, the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA).

“Whatever the location, it would be a place where teams could sleep, train, eat and, hopefully, be kept healthy enough to have confidence in resuming play⁠—maybe not to finish out the season but to at least get restarted,” wrote ESPN senior writer Brian Windhorst.

The NBA suspended its season indefinitely on March 11 after one if its players tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

It is not clear when the NBA will resume with the new season. The CBA, too, is yet to determine the reopening of its games.

Royal Caribbean confirm cases of COVID-19

Meanwhile, 14 crew members of the Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas cruise ship tested positive on the novel coronavirus.

According to a report by the Miami Herald, the captain did not say when the positive patients had been tested but a crew member recalled there already were workers with flu-like symptoms aboard the ship before Royal Caribbean suspended its operations on March 13.

Oasis of the Seas is a famous cruise ship sailing in the Bahamas seas. As of writing, the colossal ship is now docked 15 miles from Great Harbour Cay’s shore in the Bahamas.

The Bahamas has 10 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as per the World Health Organization’s database.