The NBA’s Emirates NBA Cup continues tonight — or does it? A nationwide Federal Aviation Administration ground stop, holding all departing flights in the United States on the ground due to “extraordinary circumstances,” has put the NBA slate Friday in serious jeopardy.
The NBA’s nine-game Friday slate runs straight into the sudden FAA ground stop, with the first tipoffs only hours away.
With no word yet from the league or any team on how the order changes travel, or if it does, the question is which visiting teams still had a flight to make.
The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all departures Friday afternoon over a communications problem at the 22 regional centers that guide planes between airports, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said, according to WBAL. Departures are frozen, while arrivals can still land. Hundreds of flights sat stalled at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, according to FOX 5 Atlanta.
NBA Teams Most Exposed to the FAA Ground Stop
Friday’s nine-game NBA Cup slate ends with the Oklahoma City Thunder at the LA Clippers at 10:30 p.m. ET and opens at 7 p.m. ET with Knicks-Pacers and Bucks-Magic. None of the nine away teams has said when its charter left or if it has yet to leave. Prime Video carries Knicks-Pacers and Warriors-Spurs.
The stop took effect around 3:54 p.m. EST, according to Clash Report, which also reported an advisory window through 11 p.m. EST. For a visitor not yet in town, that left the Knicks and Bucks roughly three hours before tipoff, the thinnest cushion on the board. Utah (8:30 p.m. ET), Golden State (9:30 p.m.), Portland (10 p.m.) and Oklahoma City (10:30 p.m.) have more runway for the order to lift. The Warriors, who face the Spurs at Frost Bank Center, according to Prime Video, have roughly five and a half hours between the stop’s start and tipoff. Atlanta’s game at the Chicago Bulls and Memphis’s game at the New Orleans Pelicans both start at 8 p.m. ET, leaving those two visitors about four hours.
The Atlanta Hawks’ trip touches two disrupted airports, Atlanta, and Chicago, where delays at O’Hare and Midway topped 200 flights, according to NBC Chicago.
“New domestic flights will not depart while the FAA ground stop remains in place,” United Airlines said in a statement, NBC Chicago reported. The Golden State Warriors are on a Texas swing, according to CBS Sports that runs through Houston, San Antonio and Dallas.
Saturday matters too. The Memphis Grizzlies play in New Orleans on Friday night and host Brooklyn at 8 p.m. ET Saturday. Both teams’ trips to Memphis would land in whatever fallout the stop leaves.
What Happens if NBA Games Are Delayed or Postponed
The NBA has dealt with a travel failure this year. The Dallas Mavericks made two attempts to reach Milwaukee on Jan. 25 and could not get there, so the league called off their game against the Bucks hours before tipoff, according to the Associated Press. A Denver Nuggets-Memphis Grizzlies game was postponed the same day, less than three hours before it was set to start.
NBA Cup group play ends Nov. 27, which leaves the league little room to reschedule a Cup game.
Makeup dates were not set at the time. The league moved up the start times of two Monday games instead, NBA Communications announced, according to NBA.com. Golden State once had to travel and play on the same day after mechanical trouble grounded its charter, according to CBS Sports.
No NBA game had been postponed because of the stop as of 4:55 p.m. EST, and the league had said nothing publicly about it. The FAA hasn’t said when departures resume.
“FAA technicians are investigating the issue,” Duffy wrote in a statement, as quoted by WFTV.
The last nationwide stop, in January 2023, lasted about 90 minutes, according to News On 6. Friday’s began about an hour ago and has no announced end.
The first tipoff is 7 p.m. ET. The FAA has not said whether its order will still be in place when the ball goes up.
Will NBA Games Be Delayed or Postponed Tonight? Latest on FAA Ground Stop