Players prepare for life outside bubble
The Raptors and their NBA brethren adapted to life inside the Orlando Bubble last summer rather seamlessly.
By all accounts the basketball side of things was almost perfect with first-class facilities, great practice courts and a proximity to everything making that part of their new lives easy to handle.
Mentally, there was still the issue of being confined to a single room for a good chunk of the day and, beyond the hotel walls, being confined to a particular area.
Some handled it well, some didn’t.
Now comes the grand test of taking the game back into the real world, unfortunately right when COVID-19 cases are spiking once again.
That’s entirely new circumstances and a level of risk to which the NBA family will have to adapt.
There’s plenty at stake beginning first and foremost with the health of all the individuals involved.
For members of the Raptors there’s the added task of building a home away from home, something the 29 other teams won’t have to deal with.
Border restrictions made playing in Toronto, at least to begin the season, a nonstarter so the team canvassed its players and staff members and a consensus was reached that if they had to locate out of market, they may as well do so in a warmer climate. Fort Lauderdale and Nashville were passed over for Tampa which, in addition to a steady supply of Vitamin D, has a plethora of hotels and facilities that will make the transition easier.
The hotel, though, is expected to be the starting point only for most of the players. Already they or their representatives are out in the market looking for housing and what they’re finding is pretty slim pickings.
Seems the competition, if it isn’t coming from a teammate looking at the same property, is coming from the muchanticipated Super Bowl week, which will take over Tampa for the first part of February.
According to those familiar with some of the real estate adventures so far, potential landlords are hesitant to rent for the long term if it means locking themselves out of that potentially lucrative Super Bowl week which some are suggesting could bring in well over $50,000 just for that one week.
Raptors point guard Fred VanVleet has people out looking for him, as most of the players do, and he says he knows his representatives have already run into the situation where they are scoping out the same place as another member of the Raptors.
VanVleet is eager to sign a lease because he wants that settled before he has his family join him in Florida.
But that’s just one part of adapting to what VanVleet calls the “new normal.”
On Saturday, the league released a whole slew of protocols for the players going into this season to keep them as safe as possible, complete with possible discipline should these protocols be ignored.
The testing that they got so accustomed to in the Bubble will again become part of their daily routine. But testing alone can’t keep the players from contracting the virus. As for the rest of the protocols, VanVleet said they’re all part and parcel of what everyone in the world is coping with.
“Just gotta roll with the punches,” he said. “I’m not really a complainer and I try to keep a good perspective on things so, for better or for worse, I think I’m just going to roll with it and see how it goes. Obviously put the safety of everybody first, myself included and my family and try to stay as safe and healthy as possible, but realizing the world is kind of moving on and we have to find a way to kind of live with it and still follow all the guidelines the best we can.”
That said, VanVleet is too much of a realist to just believe it will all go off without a hitch. There are going to be some bumps.
“I think the NBA is definitely trying to cover all its bases and make sure it’s a safe environment for us,” he said of the new measures. “I don’t have great expectations about that, I think it’s going to be tough to do but this is what it is and we’ve got to try to do the best we can.”
So VanVleet isn’t going to get bent out of shape by the league advising him of places he can safely eat when he’s on the road or telling him and his teammates that they can’t hit the bars either at home or on the road until the coronavirus is brought under control either through widespread vaccine distribution or some other means.
In truth, he doesn’t believe his teammates will put him or his family’s health at risk by doing anything reckless the same way he wouldn’t put his teammates at risk with his own actions.
But VanVleet knows adapting to the current circumstances as they are is just part of what has to happen if we’re all going to get back to anything approaching normal.
DEFENCE FIRST
Day 1 of team workouts at training camp in Tampa looked very similar to Day 1 of any Nick Nurse camp.
There was an emphasis on defence, followed by more defensive instruction, followed by more defensive drills.
“We always put a huge emphasis on starting to build our defence, almost totally ignoring any offensive things and plays, just to reinforce that that’s who we are, that’s our identity, and that’s what they’re emphasizing,” Nurse said.
“So, yeah, right there just building it right from the ground up, and that’s it, that’s the emphasis on Day 1 for sure.”
Nurse said he liked the energy and spirit of his first day of camp while acknowledging with so many new faces this year there is going to be some sloppiness due to unfamiliarity early on.
Nurse learned last year with even fewer new faces that another element was needed to bridge the gap between the returnees’ knowledge of the system and the newcomers lack of same knowledge.
“We started making sure here on Day 1 that there’s kind of a practice, and then there’s a second practice, a second defensive practice where they (new) guys learn terminology, the system, the coverages, etc.,” he said.