Disappointing news for some small-market teams was announced today as Adam Silver designated the Pistons, Cavaliers, and Kings as non-essential businesses.

“It’s a safety thing,” Adam Silver said on a conference call.  “We just can’t risk those teams gathering a large audience and potentially inducing sickness upon their community—or worse, a big market community.”

Broadcast personnel from TNT, ESPN and NBATV have been warned not to go near a non-essential team’s arena.      

Following the announcement, the Cavaliers suffered some embarrassment by admitting they were unaware the league had shut down.  “Yeah, we sort of stopped showing up to work a few months ago and didn’t know everyone else had too,” said Dan Gilbert.  “That’s our bad, and it won’t happen again, one can assume.”  

The Pistons, however, plan to appeal the ruling citing their decade-long policy of never having more than ten people gather for home games.  League officials do not expect Detroit to win the appeal as the NBA gave their front office a fake email address and phone number years ago. 

Sacramento is a totally different set of circumstances as fans have continued to pack the Golden One Center throughout the lock-down. 

“Yeah, we just all go the Kings games, and basketball not being played hasn’t seemed to slow that down,” a fan reported.  “Call it muscle memory, I guess.”