NBA Should Take Over Vegas to Finish The Season

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As sports leagues across the country wait out the coronavirus and contemplate what a return to league play might look like, there’s a perfect solution that could allow the NBA, uniquely among the major team sports leagues, to finish its season without requiring teams to travel around the country and risk infection by flying from one basketball gym to another.

Rather than try to play around the country or pick a few neutral sites to host games, the NBA should relocate the entire league to Las Vegas, put every team inside hotels the league exclusively controls, and play out the remainder of the season in gyms there. (This isn’t as easy of an option for the NHL given the need for multiple ice rinks, but the NHL could consider something similar, relocating to a place, Canada maybe, where there are multiple ice rinks in close proximity and they could set up a similar hockey bubble to protect everyone in the league. Major League Baseball and the MLS, since both are played outdoors, may have a bevy of options so long as they are willing to play without fans present. Overseas, the English Premier League is reportedly considering a soccer “bubble” in June and July to finish its season.)

But the NBA, thanks to the prevalence of basketball courts, has a tremendous opportunity to play its games in Las Vegas, broadcasting them around the world from sin city courts.

I know, I know, it sounds crazy to talk about finishing the NBA season in a location like Las Vegas, but there’s a tremendous amount of logic to the idea when you work through the thought experiment.

In fact, the league may already be considering it, as ESPN’s Brian Windhorst recently floated the idea that the NBA was contemplating a college campus, Las Vegas, and an island in the Bahamas as options to finish out its season.

So why does Las Vegas make the most sense?

Let’s dive in and discuss the idea....

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