Ready for a wild Disney ride
Strict protocols in place when team arrives at Orlando campus today
The Raptors may be prepared for what awaits them, but they are leery of it as well.
Having gone through almost two weeks of virtual seclusion on Florida’s Gulf Coast, much of the team’s travelling party moves inland Thursday with a new set of circumstances, new restrictions and a new lifestyle waiting for them.
The Raptors — a 36-person group, pared from the 48 on hand in Naples and Fort Myers — will be among the last eight of 22 NBA teams starting life on the NBA’s Disney campus near Orlando, all hopefully leading to a champion being crowned some time in early October.
“I think the early stages, or days, of the Disney thing are critical,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said this week. “Getting a whole bunch of testing done and getting kind of to a point there … I think it will all be done at a really high level and remain fairly safe.”
But no one knows for sure, which is cause for trepidation from everybody involved. This is unprecedented. The coronavirus everyone is running from is cruel and at times unpredictable, and that has to be foremost in their thoughts. “This virus has humbled many, so I am not going to express any higher level of confidence than we are following the protocols, and we hope it works as we designed it,” commissioner Adam Silver said in a speech Tuesday.
As the Raptors will find out when they arrive, there are strict protocols in place:
> Every member of the travelling party — 17 players plus coaches, management and support staff — will be tested for COVID-19 as soon as they enter the Disney enclave.
> They must spend 36 to 48 hours in their hotel rooms — meals delivered, no visitors, no physical contact with others — and pass the test before they can practise.
> Gym time is strictly limited: a five- or six-hour window that does not allow for post-practice lingering and working on skill development. Showers are taken back at the hotel. rather than in the gym area.
> Masks must be worn in all public areas, and social distancing guidelines must be adhered to.
Almost every eventuality has been considered, to minimize the risk and create an environment that’s as safe as possible.
“So on paper, and dealing with our experts, this should work,” Silver said in the speech to Fortune Brainstorm Health. “But we shall see. I’m confident based on the positive cases we are seeing from our players and the general public around the country that it will be safer on this campus than off this campus, in part because we are going to be doing daily testing.”
The Raptors, more than any other team, are used to it.
With a two-week quarantine in place for anyone crossing into Canada, the Raptors moved to Florida early and have been living in a similar fashion to the way it will be until their season ends.
“We are going a long ways out of our way to make it extra safe, as we should,” Nurse said. “I think that contributes to it. We really are in the hotel. We are confined. We are away from everything. There is cleaning all over the place. Everyone is wearing masks. We go to the gym and there’s cleaning and we come back.
“It feels really safe. That’s good.”
But there were also moments of anxiety in Naples and Fort Myers, and there will be in Orlando. With daily testing, each day will end — or each morning will begin — with Nurse, his staff and players waiting on tenterhooks for the all-clear to go to work.
It may eventually become second nature, just part of the routine between now and October, but at the start it will be odd. And no day will really be the same.
“Every day will be an adventure, a little bit of: OK, here’s where we are today. This practice will reflect this, tomorrow’s practice might be totally different,” Mike D’Antoni, head coach of the Houston Rockets, said on a conference call this week. “And that’s what makes it interesting. It makes it fun. But it’s a little bit like a training camp. Every year, you know, you lay out all these grand plans and about the third practice you go, ‘Ooop, they’re out.’ ”