Celtics to open Auerbach for solo workouts
Limited to one player and one coach per basket with a max of four on the floor
The door to finishing 2019-20 has reopened by a crack.
CELTICS NOTEBOOK
Shortly after The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported that NBA commissioner Adam Silver has informed the board of governors of a July 31 target date for some form of resumption of the season, the Celtics announced their own plan to reopen the Auerbach Center to voluntary player workouts on Monday.
The Boston area’s severe COVID-19 status considered, the Celtics will be among the last NBA teams to reopen their workout facility. Protocols will be intensive, starting with symptom and temperature checks before anyone is allowed to enter the facility.
The one-player, onecoach, one-basket rule will apply, with a maximum of four players allowed on the court at a time.
Players will be required to wear masks when not working out, and coaches must wear masks and gloves when working out with players – indeed, non-player personnel will wear masks at all times. A thorough cleaning of all surfaces and basketballs will take place before and after each player uses the floor.
Only essential areas will be available, with no access to locker rooms, showers, hydrotherapy, medical exam rooms, cafeteria, or offices. Social distancing will be practiced in all instances, save for physical therapy, when PPE will be used.
But the availability of physical therapy should come as a relief for players like Gordon Hayward , who noted the absence of available therapy during the lockdown during an interview with the Herald earlier this week.
“My ankle feels good. I had issues with my left foot throughout the year, and certainly haven’t been able to get the treatment I need, but sometimes the best treatment you can get for what I was going through is rest and time off,” he said.
Free agency in the air
Should competition resume on July 31, with Silver, the players association and board of governors parsing a varied list of playoff and season-ending scenarios, what follows is even more nebulous. But there have been multiple reports that a longtime favorite of teams across the league – reversing the order of free agency and the draft – may finally take form.
Hayward, who has to decide on picking up his $34.2 million option for 2020-21, needs some clarity.
“I haven’t actually even thought about it yet. (But) talking about the season (restart) with my agent, I’ve been trying to find some info from him, if he knows where we’ll end up, all the details,” he said. “But the option is something I’ll have to think about.
“This is all unprecedented. It will be interesting thinking about free agents in general, and how that whole situation will work. That will be interesting to see how it breaks down, because the last four or five years in the NBA, it always seems that the landscape in the league changes and there’s players changing teams – one of the exciting things about the NBA is that stars have the ability to change teams. Be interesting to see, but I haven’t thought about my situation.”
Chief’s last stand
Looking back on his last NBA season, when he signed as a free agent with Chicago in 1996-97 and promptly picked up his fourth NBA championship, Robert Parish never looked on the opportunity in absolute terms.
“Just because you have talent doesn’t mean you’re gonna win it,” he said of joining Michael Jordan. “Lot of things have to fall into place. You have to be playing your best basketball, you have to stay healthy, you have to have an equal amount of luck as you do talent. Little things have to fall right to win a championship. I knew it was a possibility, but I never thought it was a certainty we were going to win it. Also you have to stay healthy. One major injury to key personnel, and there goes your season.”
That much didn’t get in Parish’s way. One of the healthiest players in NBA history, he retired after the season at the age of 43 as the third oldest active player in league history.