The Chinese government has issued an order delaying the restart of the Chinese Basketball Association and other group sporting events.

The CBA has been suspended since January due to COVID-19. Many sports leagues are viewing the CBA as a test case of resuming a league impacted by COVID-19.

CBA teams have been informing players they still intend to finish out the current season and hope to have more clarity in the coming weeks.

The spread of COVID-19 has slowed down dramatically in China.

The CBA planned to house teams in quarantined hotels with multiple temperature checks per day to try to avoid the risk of exposure and spread of the virus.

Jeremy Lin and Lance Stephenson are two of the more prominent American born players in the CBA.

O.J. Mayo is close to signing a contract with Liaoning Flying Leopards in the Chinese Basketball Association.

Mayo landed in China and is in a mandatory 14-day quarantine.

Mayo would need to get medical clearance following the quarantine before officially signing with the team.

The guard could potentially join Lance Stephenson and Brandon Bass as the team's foreign imports.

There is no official date for when the CBA will restart. 

The VTB League consisting of teams from Russia, Poland, Belarus, Estonia and Kazakhstan has canceled its season.

The VTB League was initially adamant about resuming play on April 10th.

The decision from the Russian government to stop all air travel forced the VTB to make its decision.

The VTB is the first major league in Europe to cancel its season, joining Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Belgium, Bosnia, Cyprus, Ireland, Lithuania, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovakia and Ukraine. Israel and Greece have left a small window of opportunity open but have all but given up hope of playing any additional games.

The Chinese Basketball Association has delayed the restart of its season from April 15th to May after failing to receive approval from the government.

Chinese officials were affected by abandoned restarts of leagues in Japan and South Korea and over continued concern over COVID-19 in recent days. The delay of the Olympics also contributed to the decision.

The CBA is now looking at a four-month delay.

Many sports leagues view the CBA situation as a trial balloon for when their leagues can resume.

The NBA is hoping to restart at some point in late May or early June.

South Korea's basketball league, the KBL, canceled the remainder of their season due to safety concerns from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The KBL suspended play on February 29th. 

League officials met to discuss whether to restart the league on March 29th, but decided to cancel the season.

South Korean Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyu recently urged for indoor sports facilities to be closed for 15 days.

The next major basketball league scheduled to return is the VTB league, consisting of teams from Russia, Poland, Estonia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The league is set to restart play on April 10th. 

FIBA said it will make a decision about the future of the Basketball Champions League, Basketball Africa League, and other suspended international competitions soon.

The governing body released a statement saying that "no circumstance should our passion to play basketball surpass the importance of following the instructions of the public authorities."

The Basketball Africa League was set to make its league debut.

FIBA also advocated for postponing the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. 

"We will not ask our players to go somewhere, where we would not send our own children," added members of the governing body. 

American players in the Chinese Basketball Association, including Jeremy Lin and Lance Stephenson, are returning to China after the league was suspended for nearly three months.

"It's been an awesome 2 months camped out in the gym ... basketball has never been more meaningful. The world needs basketball now more than ever," Lin wrote on Instagram.

Lin, like all foreign players returning to China, must spend two weeks in quarantine before he can reunite with his teammates.

Lin averaged 24.2 points, 5.8 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game for the Beijing Ducks.

Stephenson also announced that he will return to the CBA on social media.

The league will resume in mid-April, with all 20 teams set to play in one or two cities, in empty arenas. They will play to a shortened regular season and playoff schedule. 

The Chinese Basketball Association is expected to complete its regular season behind closed door, and begin the playoffs immediately after.

Sources also told Jonathan Givony of ESPN that all teams will gather in one or two cities to complete the season.

The CBA is expected to resume in the first week of April.

Four American players returned to their respective teams, or never left the region in the first place. One team reportedly threatened "lifetime bans for players who do not return by March 15" according to a memo received by ESPN.

The Chinese Basketball Association has asked American players to return as early as this weekend to prepare for the league to resume in early April.

There are approximately 40 Americans in the CBA, including Jeremy Lin, Lance Stephenson, Tyler Hansbrough and Ty Lawson. 

Most foreign players were sent home over the Lunar New Year holiday in late January due to the outbreak of the coronavirus.

Positive signs have emerged in China regarding containment of the virus. 

The U.S. Department of State issued a travel advisory on Feb. 2 advising U.S. citizens not to travel to China after the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency.

The debut of the Basketball Africa League has been postponed due to concerns over the coronavirus.

The league was scheduled to tip off in Senegal this Friday.

"Following the recommendation of the Senegalese Government regarding the escalating health concerns related to the coronavirus, the BAL's inaugural season will be postponed," said league president Amadou Gallo Fall.

"I am disappointed we are not able to tip off this historic league as scheduled, but look forward to the highly-anticipated launch of the BAL at a later date."

There have been over 91,000 cases of coronavirus reported around the world.