Los Angeles (AFP)
NBA players will receive full wages at next pay on April 15, although he has not played basketball for a month since the season was suspended due to the coronavirus, ESPN said Thursday, citing a League memo.
Nevertheless, the authority and the players 'union (NBPA) are still negotiating to withhold a percentage of the players' winnings during the next installments, says the well-informed journalist Adrian Wojnarowski.
According to him, the amount of these deductions, which could be made from the next salaries paid on May 1, will depend on the fate of the games not played due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced the NBA to stop the championship on 11 March, when French pivot Rudy Gobert (Utah) became the first player to test positive.
April 15 should have marked the end of the regular season. Each of the 30 NBA teams has yet to play 15 to 19 games to reach the 82 scheduled.
No less than 259 meetings in total have so far been postponed indefinitely. However, given the spread of the pandemic in the United States, the League is not yet in a position to determine whether these matches will be able to be played, in a calendar that is getting tighter with each passing day.
This week, the commissioner Adam Silver indicated to the press that he would not make any decision on the fate of the season before May and that he did not rule out any option: recovery as is, recovery from the play-offs, outright cancellation of the championship.
In the event that the NBA is forced to cancel its season, a "force majeure" clause could be applied, according to which the players' wages could be reduced by up to 1% for each game canceled. The forced cessation of activities due to a pandemic is considered a case of "force majeure" as established in the collective agreement with the players.
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