Players face pay cut if they skip restart

LOS ANGELES • The National Basketball Association (NBA) has said that players who decline to play when the season restarts in Orlando, Florida, must let their clubs know by next Wednesday and will face having their pay docked by up to 14 games.

ESPN reported that the NBA Players Association informed its members on Tuesday of the deadline to decide if they want to be involved when the remainder of the regular term and subsequent play-offs take place at the Disney World resort.

The NBA is aiming for a July 30 restart after a four-month coronavirus-enforced break, with 22 invited teams, including the 12 who have already clinched their post-season berths.

Given that some players - including the Brooklyn Nets' Kyrie Irving and Dwight Howard of the Los Angeles Lakers - have expressed their reservations about returning to play amid the pandemic and widespread civil unrest in the United States, the owners and the union have cut a deal.

Any player who decides to sit out the rest of the season will have their compensation cut for each game skipped, up to a maximum of 14 games.

"It may not be for everyone," NBA commissioner Adam Silver said of the league's return-to-play plan. "It will entail enormous sacrifice - of those players and for everyone involved - the coaches, the referees."

He added that players who decide to miss the rest of the season will not be considered "in breach of contract".

Some NBA players could be given exemptions from the pay cuts if they can medically show they belong to a higher-risk category when it comes to contracting the coronavirus.

Silver also promised to address player concerns before games resume, although he admitted finding a "uniform" opinion among all players from the 22 teams was an unlikely prospect.

"It's not an ideal situation," he told ESPN. "We are trying to find a way to our own normalcy in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of essentially a recession or worse with 40 million unemployed (in the United States), and now with enormous social unrest in the country.

Kyrie Irving's reported salary, which will presumably be cut if he sits out the rest of the NBA season.

"As we work through these issues, I can understand how some players may feel... it may be for family reasons, it may be for health reasons, or it may be because they feel, as some have said recently, that their time is best spent elsewhere.

"In the midst of all that, to say, 'We're looking for an opportunity to restart this league, to try to move forward with crowning a champion,' it's not (at the) top of (the) mind for a lot of people."

The league has been on hold since March 11 due to the pandemic, but training camp is set to be held from July 9-29 before the targeted July 30 recommencement.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS