3 Cavs players that’d be really fun to watch in potential NBA charity game
By Dan Gilinsky
On an appearance on a recent talk show on Wednesday, NBA commissioner Adam Silver touched on the issue at hand in relation to the novel coronavirus pandemic, and he also mentioned the possibility of a charity game at some point. A few Cleveland Cavaliers players came to mind right away in regards to that, too.
As you know, the 2019-20 NBA season for the Cleveland Cavaliers and other teams is suspended until further notice due to the league wanting to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The league’s suspension happened on March 11, after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19, and since, six other players around the league have tested positive. In relation to those other players and further reported details, you can view those here and also here.
Anyhow, on Wednesday, in an appearance on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” with the current host at the time, Rachel Nichols, Silver hit on a few possibilities for the rest of the season, and noted how it’s unclear if the 2019-20 season will resume or not at this juncture, given the concerns involving COVID-19, but did seemingly note how the league is going to take things day-by-day, week-by-week.
Silver, as ESPN’s Tim Bontemps detailed, also highlighted three possibilities that the NBA is considering at this time, as of Wednesday, involving resuming the current season at some point with fans in arenas, restarting the season without fans and noted the third option could be perhaps a charity game that could maybe have a similar format to how the 2020 All-Star Game had involving a contest with “the Elam Ending” that seemed to be a smashing success.
I asked Adam Silver how he'd determine if the NBA season could resume, and if so, what it would look like - he told me the league is considering three different options for going forward, including a possible one-off event for charity. Said Silver: "all suggestions welcome." pic.twitter.com/rX7D5oJvup
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) March 19, 2020
Silver, as one can see above, also emphasized how players potentially competing in a charity game would have to be cleared medically and that it’d of course be certain they didn’t test positive for the novel coronavirus.
This potential charity game, which again is anything but a certainty at this point, is a really cool idea to me, and as Silver stressed, a “diversion” would be pretty nice for us NBA and sports fans, in general, right now. Player safety always come first, though, and Silver’s right for harping on that.
So to piggyback off an idea I came across from Andrew Miller of Pippen Ain’t Easy, who highlighted three Chicago Bulls players that fans would want to see in a potential charity game (one is not current), I figured I’d highlight three players on the Cleveland Cavaliers that I’d like to see in that hypothetical scenario, beginning with a big-time dunker.