Silver: NBA will address player concerns before return

NBA commissioner Adam Silver plans to listen for now, but he expects the league to address all player concerns before games resume in Orlando next month. Silver said he has a sense that players and the league should be able to “work through most of those issues over the next few weeks,” when asked on Monday night about how the NBA is handling concerns over the optics of playing during the Black Lives Matter movement as well as health and safety matters around the coronavirus pandemic. “It's not an ideal situation,” Silver said regarding a series of issues the NBA is facing in an appearance on ESPN on Monday night. it may be for family reasons, it may be for health reasons they have, or it may be because they feel — as some players have said very recently -- that their time is best spent elsewhere.” A coalition of players including Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving has held a series of players-only calls and also communicated concerns to the league regarding how to use the NBA platform to continue the BLM movement — and not detract from it while playing. And 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 top of mind for a lot of people.” Silver said finding a “uniform” opinion among all players from the 22 teams invited to resume the 2020 NBA season on July 30 won't likely happen.