LeBron James, Stephen Curry, and Kawhi Leonard All Want the NBA Season to Resume, But There Is More to Figure Out

SI senior writer Chris Mannix shares some insight on some of the hurdles the NBA has to get over before the season resumes

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

Robin Lundberg: NBA players have been informally surveyed about whether they want to return to the season. For more, I'm joined by our senior writer, Chris Mannix. And Chris, doesn't this sort of question need more context than simply yes or no? Whichever way you were going to respond?

Chris Mannix: Yeah. Among the players that I've talked to, that has been a consistent response. In general, the vast majority of players want to resume the season a different no other reason than their obvious financial concerns when it comes to playing versus not playing. But there are a number of pieces of information that they still don't have at this point. They don't know where they're going to be located and playing. They don't know how long they're going to be quarantined in said place, and how many members of their family are going to be able to be quarantined with them, if any at all. And maybe most importantly, there still has not been a concrete policy that's been laid out where we know what happens when somebody tests positive for coronavirus, because that is viewed in NBA circles as an inevitability, if the NBA season ultimately resumes. So there's a lot of concrete things that need to be ironed out before players can really say one way or the other whether they want to return. 

Robin Lundberg: How much influence to the superstar players have? Because we've heard LeBron James and Durant and Curry and Kawhi Leonard, the NBA Avengers, if you will, saying they're establishing a united front to return at least there are reports.

Chris Mannix: Yeah. Yahoo! Sports reported that there was a call amongst the elite level players. Look, it certainly is influential, but in circumstances like this and I've noticed this when it comes to collective bargaining agreement negotiations as well. It's not a huge influence. Right? Like everybody kind of has their own ideas and everybody's looking out for themselves. So star players certainly wield a big bat amongst some. But ultimately, I think players are going to decide for themselves how they want to handle this.