‘Full-steam ahead’
League set for season restart in Orlando
Though Florida continues to double its daily high of COVID-19 cases, the NBA and NBPA announced their plan yesterday to restart activity and eventually the season on June 30.
All admit that though Orlando isn’t quite the same hot zone as southern Florida, the conditions are less than ideal for trying to create a bubble-like environment in the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex within Disney World.
Everything from the status of Disney employees allowed to travel in and out of the protective zone to whether families should also be allowed to make the trip have been discussed.
But barring an outbreak among players within the bubble — the league announced that 16 players have tested positive for COVID following Tuesday’s mandatory testing — the league and players have decided with a few exceptions to go all-in on their attempt to save the season.
Commissioner Adam Silver acknowledged that this effort — probably the most complex and risky in league history — will move forward with the understanding that players and officials alike must learn to “live with this virus.”
In a state as unpredictable as Florida at the moment, the league is placing a lot of faith in its plan, with continuous testing and a lot of moving parts that will move on and off the three floors in the complex.
Though Silver said that a solitary positive test in Orlando would not be grounds for halting play, he admitted that “a line hasn’t been drawn yet” if multiple players test positive, and the threat of a major spread inside the bubble presents itself.
“We haven’t worked through every scenario,” he said. “But the notion would be that if we had a single player test positive, frankly, whether that player was an All-Star or a journeyman, that player would then go into quarantine. We would then be tracking any players or other personnel that that player had been in contact with, and even potentially supplement the daily testing just to ensure that others have not been contaminated.
“But then we would continue. That team would be down a man, and we would treat that positive test as we would an injury during the season. And so we would not delay the continuation of the playoffs.”
And for now, anyway, his teams are all-in on an unpredictable situation.
“We’ve heard that downtown Orlando is a little concerning, but that it’s not as bad as other parts of Florida,” said a league executive. “It depends on who you listen to that you get different feedback from this, I guess.
“But from our own perspective we’re full-steam ahead.”