THE Asean Basketball League is looking to resume operations after the 2021 Southeast Asian Games.
Stakeholders, officials, and team owners convened virtually on Monday night to discuss the future of the league after its 10th season was halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and rumors of the league closing shop swirled.
Charlie Dy, San Miguel Alab Pilipinas team owner, shared the brief timeline the ABL provided as it continues to make plans for its next season.
"They only mentioned plans for the restart, which will be after the SEA Games. So they're looking at January 2022 for that," the soft-spoken executive said.
San Miguel Alab Pilipinas was gunning to reclaim the title this year and was running second with a 10-6 win-loss card when league officials pulled the plug on the 2019-20 season back March stemming from the spread of the virus. It was ultimately cancelled in July.
It's going to be a long wait for the ABL as the 2021 SEA Games hosted by Hanoi, Vietnam will be held from Nov. 21 to Dec. 2.
Still, Dy said league officials are eyeing to stage pocket tournaments for its member teams granting that the situation gets better.
"They also talked about possibly having pocket tournaments in 2021 if travel is allowed without quarantine anymore," he said.
All 10 teams for this season, namely Alab, Mono Vampire (since rebranded to Vampires Basketball), Singapore Slingers, Saigon Heat, Westports Malaysia Dragons, Hong Kong Eastern, Macau Black Bears, Macau Wolf Warriors, Formosa Dreamers, and Taiwan Fubon Braves, attended the said meeting.
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