Cuban: Mavs won't reopen facility due to inability to test players

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The Dallas Mavericks won't be welcoming players back to their training facility anytime soon.

Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said Wednesday the team currently has no plans to reopen its gym at all, citing a lack of available coronavirus testing for players.

"Yeah, it's not gonna happen," he told Brian Dameris and Mark Followill on The Athletic's "77 Minutes in Heaven" podcast. "The problem obviously is because we can't test people, then we can't assure anybody's safety, whether they're basketball players or anybody else.

"And even though we can try to take all different kinds of precautions, it's just not worth it, particularly when our guys are staying in shape and they're going outside and shooting on outdoor hoops and, you know, working out in various ways. So I just don't think the risk is worth the reward."

As some teams prepare to welcome players to facilities as soon as Friday, the NBA has reportedly advised clubs not to test any asymptomatic personnel. That follows a memo issued last week in which the league stated it would be inappropriate "in the current public health environment to regularly test all players and staff for the coronavirus," per ESPN's Tim Bontemps.

Cuban is the first NBA owner to publicly refuse to reopen his team's training facility. Other teams have said they will not be able to make their centers available Friday but are still targeting other dates later this month.

However, the 61-year-old executive is optimistic that a season can resume quickly if testing becomes more abundant.

"It's very binary; once the tests are available, the tests are available, and we can have all the other things we need to do already in place," Cuban said. "It's going to take a little bit of time for guys to get in shape, but most of the league is young and so it's not going to be that challenging for them to get in shape.

"I mean, remember: a full training camp these days is three weeks. It's not like it's an extended period of time."

Cuban's proposed timeline falls in line with the reported 25-day plan from the NBA. In that scenario, players would work out individually for the first 11 days. If the league is cleared to begin five-on-five scrimmages, a two-week training camp would then follow.