New York Post, Friday, March 13, 2020nypost.comRNo tourney
won’t help
Knicks prep
for NBA draft
By Marc BermanATLANTA — The 2020 NBA Draft,
scheduled for June 25, will be a monumen-
tal for the Knicks, who may have three se-
lections in the top 35.
However, coronavirus has suspended
the NBA season until further notice and
impeded the Knicks scouting staff’s at-
tempt to do any more live college scout-
ing.
Every major college conference tourna-
ment and the NCAA Tournament were
canceled Thursday, giving the Knicks
much less opportunity to scout prospects.
Even if the NCAA Tournament had gone
on without fans as the organization an-
nounced Wednesday, the Knicks scouting
department would have been banned any-
way.
While essential personnel were to be al-
lowed into the tourney games if they hap-
pened, NBA front-office personnel/scouts
weren’t going to be permitted, according
to an industry source. And that would
have included new Knicks president Leon
Rose, the former agent who has been on
the job just nine days.
The industry source said NBA front-of-
fice personnel are not credentialed for the
tournament and have to buy tickets. With
that fan ban, no special exception would
have been made for the NBA.
Knicks GM Scott Perry has told confi-
dants he doesn’t scout at a lot of NCAA
Tournament games because usually the
seats are subpar.
However, last season Perry and former
president Steve Mills bolted at halftime of
a Knicks matinee at the Garden to fly to an
NCAA Tournament regional in Tulsa,
Okla., to get a final look at lottery pick Jar-
rett Culver of Texas Tech.
NFL teams, including the Giants and
Jets, are pulling their coaches and scouts
off the road.
The Knicks are expected to have their
own lottery pick and the first-round pick
of the Clippers, which should be in the No.
25 range. They also own the Hornets’ sec-
ond-round pick, which will be in the 30s.
The Post reported the Knicks have pri-
oritized a scoring point guard with their
lottery pick. That’s because they feel set at
shooting guard with RJ Barrett.
However, the mock drafts are settling on
Georgia’s Anthony Edwards, a shooting
guard, as the top overall pick. The top
point guard in many projections is LaMelo
Ball, who played in Australia before shut-
ting down his season in December. The
Post reported nobody from the Knicks
front office or scouting staff traveled to
Australia to see Ball play.
MONEYBALL: Spencer Dinwiddie wants to live up to the “Spread Love” slogan displayed on his chest by encouraging NBA teams to
offer financial support to the employees who will suffer while the league is on hold because of coronavirus. APBy Brian LewisSAN FRANCISCO — With the coronavi-
rus grinding sports, including the NBA, to a
halt, there will be more than just players
missing checks, but also support staff and
arena workers.
With Mavericks owner Mark Cuban lead-
ing the way by saying he will make sure his
hourly employees are paid through the end
of the month, many are calling for other
teams to follow suit.
“Gotta take care of the non salary arena
staff etc,” Nets point guard Spencer Dinwid-
die wrote Thursday morning on Twitter.
The NBA suspended the season late
Wednesday night to try to protect players,
personnel and fans from the COVID-19 pan-
demic. While the players will be missing
game checks, there are many more people
involved that make far less and will be even
more impacted.
“There’s going to be hourly employees that
aren’t working,” Cuban said on ESPN. “And
so, we talked again this morning with our
folks at the AAC [American Airlines Center]
and getting the numbers. For the next four
Mavs games we have a program where —
the next four would-have-been Mavs games
— we’ll pay our employees, our hourly em-
ployees, as if they worked.
“When some of the things were coming up
that we might not play games — this was
yesterday — I reached out to the folks at the
arena and our folks at the Mavs to find out
what it would cost to support, financially
support, people who aren’t going to be able
to come to work.
“You know, they get paid by the hour, and
this was their source of income ... We’ve al-
ready started the process of having a program
in place. I don’t have any details to give, but it’s
certainly something that’s important to me.”In a press conference Thursday, Mayor
Bill de Blasio said New York City is con-
cerned about people’s loss of livelihood, es-
pecially if businesses will be cutting back or
shutting down in the coming days. He added
the state ban on gatherings over 500 people
— NBA games, for example — could last for
months.
Some have called for NBA players to kick
in and help defray the lost income by the
people who work their games; after all, they
are millionaires. Kevin Love donated
$100,000 to Cavaliers arena and support
staff affected by the suspension, according
to The Athletic. But Dinwiddie pointed out
that there are billionaires who sign their
checks — and those of the hourly workers.
“I understand the fixation on the M word
referenced above. Believe me, I do,” Dinwid-
die tweeted. “But you do know there’s a B
word that’s literally 1000x more powerful...”
Nets owner Joe Tsai responded to Dinwid-die’s tweet late Thursday night and appears
ready to help.
“Hear hear @SDinwiddie_25 we’re work-
ing on a plan!,” wrote Tsai, an e-commerce
billionaire.
The Nets have nine home games left on
the regular-season schedule.
With the Nets flying back from California
on Thursday as the NBA Board of Governors
deliberated on the league’s next course of ac-
tion, Dinwiddie vouched for Tsai’s altruism.
“He’s definitely a world class individual,”
Dinwiddie tweeted, followed up by another
clarifying his point.
“No I’m advocating that everybody should
pitch in to help everybody else. It’s about
the human race. Highlighting any single
demographic does a disservice to the cause
as a whole. I was simply reminding you that
there is a class that sits on top of the ecosys-
tem. It ain’t us...”
[email protected]Silver: Break ‘at least 30 days’
Everything is on the table for the
NBA, from canceling the season to
playing deeper into the summer.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who
suspended his league’s season late
Wednesday night because of concerns
with coronavirus after the Jazz’s Rudy
Gobert tested positive for it, appeared
on TNT’s “Inside the NBA” on Thurs-
day to address where the league stands.
He said games will be suspended for “at
least 30 days” and did not rule out the
NBA not resuming play at all.
“Of course it’s possible,” Silver said.
“We just don’t know at this point.”He noted the NBA has not canceled
its season because it hopes to resume
play and potentially run its postseason
past its usual June end date. He called
the break a chance “for us to step back,
take a breath and ensure everyone in
the NBA community was safe and
healthy.”
“Even if we are out for a month, even
if we are out for six weeks, we could
still restart the season,” Silver said. “It
might mean that the Finals take place in
July or late July. It was way premature
to suggest that we had lost the season.”
— Joseph StaszewskiCORONAVIRUS
IN BASKETBALL