NBPA’s President Chris Paul Outlines Return to Action Expectations

The news regarding the NBA’s relaxing of practice facility restrictions in certain areas provided a glimmer of hope for players and fans. Following that news, NBPA President and Thunder point guard Chris Paul explained that players will require a reasonable restart period before resuming competition.

ESPN’s Royce Young captured Paul’s quotes during a conference call. During the briefing, Paul explained that players will need weeks of preparation before jumping into full-speed competition.

“I’m just letting you know — and I don’t think the league would do it anyway — but if they were like, ‘Hey, you got two weeks, and then we’re going,’ that’s not going to happen,” Paul, who is serving his seventh year as National Basketball Players Association president, said during a conference call. “That’s not going to happen. Whatever the amount of time is, just know that players will have the input, the say-so, because we’re the ones playing. That comes first. We don’t ever want to put guys in a situation where their injury risk is higher than ever before.”

Paul went on to explain that access to facilities and training areas have varied across the league for individual players.

“I get what we’re dealing with right now, a lot of hypotheticals, but I don’t know,” Paul said when asked how long players would need to get back in basketball shape. “This is the thing with having 450 players in the league and being in a situation like this, where some guys have access to weight rooms, some guys don’t. Some guys have access to facilities where they can train or do this or can run. That’s why, whatever happens — and I say this, and I mean this — we always go back to the players.”

You can read the full story from Young at ESPN.