Mental health key to life in bubble

Isolation as big a concern as COVID-19 or injuries, says NBPA president

There will be any number of men and women working with NBA teams, between now and whenever the season ends, dealing with the physical needs of everyone involved. There will be daily testing for the coronavirus and any treatment that arises from that, as well as the usual bevy of doctors, athletic trainers and physical therapists to handle the inevitable muscle pulls and strains and injuries that pop up.

But some of the most important medical people on the league’s Disney campus — and in the training sessions that lead up to it — will be there to help deal with the mental stress that goes with such a unique experience.

“The top priority is health and safety and I think when people hear health and safety, a lot of times people think about injury or they just think about COVID,” NBPA president Chris Paul of the Oklahoma City Thunder said on a conference call Friday. “While both are important, I think mental health is the biggest thing that a lot of us players think of first.

“Although a lot of us always look like we’re all together or that we’re fine ... that’s not always the case, especially coming out of quarantine and (with) a lot of us being in situations that we’ve never been in before. And now we’re going into an even tougher situation.”

The league has guaranteed mental health professionals will be on-call from the time teams start arriving in Orlando about July 7 until the end of the season in early October.

Having players separated from family members for weeks or months just adds a measure of stress, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic rages throughout much of the United States. And being sequestered during these times of upheaval, when many players want to continue to try and effect social change, won’t be easy to handle.

“There’s no doubt there’s tremendous sacrifice that everyone is making who’s going to be part of this campus in order to restart the league, and so we’re going to have to keep a close eye on these issues,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said. “There will be people down there whose job it is to talk to players, both collectively and individually, and … I know the players will continue programs that they’re part of, which they’ll be able to do through various forms of technology.”

The Raptors, meanwhile, are taking steps further given their unique circumstances. The organization decided to add about two weeks to the cloistered existence by having informal workouts and a pre-Orlando training camp in Fort Myers, Fla., almost a two-hour drive from the Disney/ESPN campus. In addition to having mental health professionals available for the group in Florida, MLSE and the team will ensure the needs of family members separated from players, coaches and staff are taken care of as well.

It’s part and parcel of what the league has done since a couple of high-profile players went public with their struggles.

“I think we’re so fortunate in our league to have two guys, in Kevin Love and DeMar DeRozan, who really gave us all more of a comfort level in speaking about this,” Paul said.

The other non-basketball aspect to the resumption of the season is still evolving. There is no question the players, with the league’s support, will use the platform they have in Orlando to promote matters of social impact. The NBA and the players association are reportedly finalizing plans to place social messages or statements on their jerseys when games resume July 30.

“We, as the NBA, have a partnership with essentially a large cohort of the best-known Black people in the world, including the greater family of the WNBA, too, and some amazing women who have been speaking out on these issues,” Silver said last week. “So I think this is incumbent on us to not lose this moment and this opportunity.”