Earlier this week, Mark Cuban predicted that NBA games could be back by mid-May. As Dallas News reports, the Dallas Mavericks owner spoke about the suspension of the NBA season on account of the COVID-19 pandemic and seemed hopeful about it coming to an end soon.
"I’m proud of the NBA and the way we’ve reacted,” Cuban said in an interview with WFAA. “We’ve led the way and hopefully will lead the way out of this. No one has perfect information right now, so all decisions are tough, but if I had to guess based off the people I’ve talked to at the CDC and other places, I would say that the over-under [for the league’s return] would be June 1 and I’m taking the under... Hopefully by the middle of May we're starting to get back to normal and the NBA is playing games, maybe not with fans, but we're playing games."
Cuban shared similar sentiment on Twitter, with a caveat. "Just to clarify, everything I say is always qualified with a statement that it will depend on what doctors and scientists say," Cuban tweeted on Thursday in response to a tweet from ESPN's Michele Steele. "That said, I'm more hopeful than I was 2 weeks ago about us being able to return and play in front of no fans prior to June 1."
Shortly before the NBA season was suspended earlier this month, a number of games were played with no fans in attendance.
While some billionaires are pushing for America to restart its economy, and for their employees to get back to work, Cuban recently took a stand against that approach. "Ignore anything someone like me might say," Cuban said in an email to Bloomberg, indicating that Americans should listen to epidemiologists instead of billionaires. "Lives are at stake."
