• The NBA season has been on hold for nearly two months since Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the league to a screeching halt.
  • Since then, the league has looked at numerous contingency plans with hopes of being able to complete the 2020 season in some fashion.
  • According to The Athletic’s Shams Charania, the NBA is considering Disney World in Orlando, Florida, as a potential host site to finish out the season.
  • Disney World could be a good match for the league, given its relative isolation, plentiful housing, and multiple courts that are broadcast ready.
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The NBA is considering all options as it hopes to conclude the 2020 season, but one in Orlando could be better than the rest.

The league has been on pause for nearly two months since Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19. Since then, the novel coronavirus pandemic has brought the entirety of the sports world to a halt, with huge events from Wimbledon to the Tokyo Olympics being postponed or canceled outright.

The NBA has been looking at all viable options to restart play, with several plans involving putting players in a “bubble” of isolation. According to Shams Charania at The Athletic, one host city could be Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

While Disney World might not strike NBA fans as the first city that would be game to host a revamped conclusion to the season, there's reason to think the two could be a perfect match.

As The Ringer's Kevin O'Connor explained on Twitter, Disney World fits all of the needs of the league and comes with the benefit of relative isolation.

Disney World has plenty of housing at its disposal to put up players as they conclude the season. As the hosts of multiple college basketball tournaments throughout the year, the park already has courts that are set up for broadcasting, providing some logistical ease. And given that it is a private resort rather than a public city, the key idea of the "bubble" - that healthy players are isolated from interacting with anyone who is potentially sick - can be accomplished with relative ease compared to attempting to pull off a similar idea in Las Vegas or Los Angeles.

Further, with ESPN, a key broadcast partner of the NBA, owned by Disney, there's reason to think that both sides would be eager to make a deal that works for all parties involved. And with professional wrestling already deemed an essential business in Florida, getting approval from the state government to bring back basketball for the purposes of providing fans stuck at home with live entertainment shouldn't prove much of an issue.

There is still a lot that would have to be done before the NBA is in a position to consider a return to action. League commissioner Adam Silver stressed the importance of following the data and an increase in the availability of testing while on a conference call with media in mid-April.

"I think we're looking for the number of new infections to come down," Silver said. "We're looking for the availability of testing on a large scale. We're looking at the path that we're on for potentially a vaccine. We're looking at antivirals."

The plan would also need a buy-in from the Players Association before moving forward with such a drastic proposal.

The idea of the NBA finishing out its season still has plenty of hurdles to clear before becoming a reality, but should wider testing become available and the plan begins to move forward, Disney World could serve as a perfect host.

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