NBA Rumors: Los Angeles Lakers Forward Certain NBA Will Resume Season By July

Los Angeles Lakers forward Jared Dudley is certain that the NBA will resume its season. As the league is said to be positive on continuing its games despite COVID-19 still being a threat, the 13-year veteran sees their return finally happening in July.

Perhaps one of, if not the most vocal player to guarantee the resumption of the 2020 season, Dudley told Allie Clifton of Spectrum SportsNet that since a vaccine for the Coronavirus will not be available for at least a year and a half based on projection, it could be just rational that the NBA lifts its suspension, even citing that players at their age will not be vulnerable in the face of the virus scare.

“Let’s just be honest, they say that a vaccine isn’t going to come out for about 18 months, so no matter what, next year, during the NBA season — whether it starts on time or in December — there is going to be no vaccine. So not having that, safety-wise, you’re going to be fan-less if you have a season,” the 34-year-old said.

“Can you play and be safe enough to guarantee people of not potentially dying or getting sick? The NBA believes, with the amount of testing they can do in a month or two when it becomes more available to not only everybody in society, but their players, that the data will show that the ages between 19 and 35 of players, the mortality rate for players is 0.00001%, and even less for professional athletes.

“So if they come with this bubble in Orlando, which is most certainly going to happen because Disney is a No. 1 partner of the NBA... and (Las) Vegas obviously being a huge partner with the summer league, to be able to have that and put it in the bubble, have the cleaning crew from the hotel to the arena, your percentages go down dramatically, so I believe there will be a season, I believe that it will be announced in three to four weeks, and I believe that we’ll be playing games by the second week of July.”

A week ago, the Office of the Commissioner and several NBA star players reportedly came to a consensus to not cancel the season. Among the players present were Dudley’s teammates Anthony Davis and LeBron James, who both aim to spearhead the Lakers back to the elusive title chase.