With no disrespect to Adam Silver, but when looking at him, Mister Barlow from the TV horror movie, Salem's Lot comes to mind. The comparison doesn't end there. Barlow virtually emptied the town of Salem's Lot of it's occupants, and Adam has his work ahead of him from having the same happen to NBA arenas around the country.
Battling a centuries-old vampire might be a cakewalk compared to taking on a sub-microscopic entity that exists in a state somewhere between life and death (per Scientific American's Luis Villareal):
First seen as poisons, then as life-forms, then biological chemicals, viruses today are thought of as being in a gray area between living and nonliving:
So even though viruses can't be totally classified as living things, they have the power to sicken and kill human beings. That is what Adam Silver is up against.
No longer protected by a bubble environment, NBA players are being infected with COVID-19 at an increasing rate. Spectators are almost non-existent in the arenas, and it is doubtful that will change soon. League revenue was down significantly last season due to the virus, and things already look bad for this year.
With the enormous salaries dished out to NBA players and coaches, the league simply can not withstand losing vast amounts of income without suffering, or perhaps going under totally. That is part of the reason this season has not been paused or cancelled. Taking such a hit could be destructive to the NBA as we know it.
So fans sit back, watching and listening, as players get yanked via COVID protocols and games get cancelled due to lack of available players. The NBA has been constructed to thrive, but perhaps not to survive.
But on the bright side, Adam Silver is one intelligent individual, one for whom I hold much respect. But he is being pulled in several directions at once, facing financial, moral and medical issues - all at the same time. The safety measures, protocols and moral issues necessary to keep the League viable this season make the task extraordinarily difficult.
It is not a powerful vampire causing empty stands and cancelled games. It is an enemy so small, it can't be seen with a standard microscope - and exists somewhere between dead and alive - relying on Silver's players as hosts in which to embed themselves in order to replicate. Sounds like a horror movie in itself.
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https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-viruses-alive-2004/
First seen as poisons, then as life-forms, then biological chemicals, viruses today are thought of as being in a gray area between living and nonliving:
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