Kai Sotto's NBL debut could be delayed as Australian league faces COVID-19 challenges

Kai Sotto's much-anticipated debut in the National Basketball League (NBL) could be facing a delay after the league said it is mulling to move the season opener to a later date due to the COVID-19 situation in Australia.

League commissioner Jeremy Loeliger bared in an interview on ESPN's Ball and the Real World podcast last October 1 that while the tip-off is still scheduled to take place on November 18, he had to admit that nothing has been cast in stone yet. 

Loeliger said the league's top priority remains to be the health and safety of all stakeholders, including the fans, whom they plan to allow to watch games live once the league hits the ground.

"We're still scheduled to start on November 18," Loeliger said.

"[But] given that we've always said our priority is our fans and allowing them to attend as many games in their home city as possible, it would be derelict of us not to continue to monitor and consider current circumstances of whether or not we push that date back a little further."

This year's NBL season is brewing to be one for the books with overseas players set to see action Down Under, one being the Philippines' basketball prodigy in Sotto, who is set to suit up for the Adelaide 36ers.

Also tipped to show their wares are China's big men Zhou Qi of the South East Melbourne Phoenix and Liu Chuanxing of the Brisbane Bullets.

But having players flying from abroad, according to Loeliger, is also one of their challenges brought by the pandemic as travel restrictions from around the world are in place.

Currently, Australia has a total of 113,000 of COVID-19 cases with a seven-day average of 1,849 as of September 30.

"We try to minimize disruptions to clubs and players as much as possible and we play in a code that happens to be a global sport and so a lot of our players are coming from overseas and wanting to play basketball," he added.

"Officially it's still November 18 but you're 100 percent correct [that] there is certainly some murmur on the streets because of that fact that a lot of other codes are continuing to push back and we're continuing to monitor the numbers on a day-by-day basis."

Loeliger, though, assured that they remain in contact with players and the league staff in order to still open the season this year and avoid unfurling it next year.

"We're in conversations literally on a daily basis with the players association and our operations team and it's very challenging because as quickly as we try to update them, things change. That's a difficult situation," Loeliger said.

"We're very keen to still keep it close to as normal as we can and not push it into the new year, in terms of the start date. We want to get these things started but we want to do it in a way we can keep people safe."

—JMB, GMA News