Disruptions hit every team
The Toronto Raptors, or more specifically, a group of basketball players that would soon be issued new Raptors uniforms, boarded the bus in Cleveland, needing to rush through preparations to play the Cavaliers.
There was much to address, from a few inbounds plays to defensive assignments. But first, they needed to start from the beginning. They needed to introduce themselves.
The Raptors used a starting lineup of Dalano Banton, Svi Mykhailiuk, D.J. Wilson, Yuta Watanabe and Chris Boucher. Of the eight players available that night, none were previously starters, four were not previously in the NBA. They lost by 45 points to a relatively well-stocked Cavaliers team. The Cavs played with “only” seven players lost to health and safety protocols.
The plight of the Raptors was not unique. Hawks coach Nate McMillan, with 13 players out in health and safety protocols on Tuesday, said his pregame preparations began with showing many of his players how to get to their locker room.
When the Rockets faced the Lakers on Tuesday, both teams had four players in health and safety protocols.
When the Timberwolves topped the Celtics on Monday, the teams were without a combined 15 players, including All-Stars Jayson Tatum and Karl-Anthony Towns.
The Pistons had eight players out in health and safety protocols, with two more out with injuries, reducing their list of available players to nine, including five promoted from the Motor City Cruise, their G League affiliate, including one who joined the team shortly before the game.
The Bulls have had 13 players in protocols this month. On Monday, the Magic had 13 players out.
Irving back, gone, back
The Nets have had 10 players going out, reaching the point where they reversed their position and decided to bring the unvaccinated Kyrie Irving back for road games even while a New York City ordinance bars him from playing or practicing at home. Irving tested positive the next day and just emerged from protocols.
Even the teams relatively unscathed braced for the outbreak of COVID cases to reach their roster and wreck their plans.
“Just come in in the morning and find out who is available and go with it,” said Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, with only starting point guard Dejounte Murray out. “It’s not like we are the lone ranger. Every team is going through it, so we all have to deal with it.”
While players on Tuesday began coming back nearly as rapidly as they have gone out, the increased post-Christmas testing is expected to prolong the upheaval, with NBA coaches forced to pivot as rapidly as G League coaches, who work with their players frequently called back to the NBA team.
“Every day you are just wondering what’s going to happen next,” Atlanta’s McMillan said. “You walk into the office knowing you are already down players and you get the news that three of your players and a couple coaches go down. They have to go into protocol and we have to continue on.”
On Monday, the league had 120 players listed as out for COVID-related reasons. More than 550 players have played in the NBA this season, a record for a full season reached in two months.
Nine games have been postponed when teams were unable to piece together at least eight healthy and available bodies.
Still, the season has gone on, even without a Dream Team’s worth of stars, with Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant, James Harden, Luka Doncic, Trae Young, Bradley Beal, Tatum and Towns missing time while in health and safety protocols.
Among coaches, the Lakers’ Frank Vogel, Thunder’s Mark Daigneault, Suns’ Monty Williams, Trail Blazers’ Chauncey Billups, Bulls’ Billy Donovan, Kings’ Alvin Gentry and Pacers’ Rick Carlisle have been out while in health and safety protocols.
The NBA was unable to reach agreement with the players’ association to mandate vaccinations, but commissioner Adam Silver said last week that 97 percent of players are vaccinated with 65 percent of those eligible to receive booster shots having received them. He said roughly 90 percent of the positive tests have been with the omicron variant.
The latest rise in cases seemed tied to the increase of testing required after Christmas and the break in the schedule for most of the league. That testing led to the initial positive tests produced by Rockets Garrison Mathews and D.J. Augustin after contact tracing mandated the testing. Those positives triggered daily testing and the positive results produced by Jae’Sean Tate and K.J. Martin.
The Rockets are among the teams that are fully vaccinated and boostered.
Yet, while the league has weighed contingencies, Silver said it is not considering halting play again as it did in 2020 when the pandemic began.
“No plans right now to pause the season,” Silver said on ESPN last week. “We’ve of course looked at all the options but frankly, we’re having trouble coming up with what the logic would be to pausing right now.
“As we look at these cases literally ripping through the country right now, putting aside the rest of the world, I think we’re finding ourselves where we knew we would get to the past couple of months. And that it, this virus will not be eradicated and we’re going to have to live with it.”
Silver called continuing play “the right and responsible thing to do.” There has been thinking that a pause could cause more harm than good if the league would no longer be able to test and require that players and staff adhere to protocols when not reporting for work each day. But Silver’s inference seemed to be that it would be impossible to wait out COVID.
Unlike the pause in 2020 when there was a hope that it would not last, only to instead force the season to be completed in an Orlando bubble, the rise of variants since has led to the decision to “live with it.”
“Maybe we can demonstrate that there’s a way we can move forward recognizing that this virus isn’t going anywhere and it’s just going to become part of our lives for the foreseeable future,” Silver said.
Isolation shortened
There has been one adjustment that could help. Data on PCR tests measure viral load and has indicated that the virus runs through the system of vaccinated individuals more quickly and that they do not shed the virus to the extent of unvaccinated individuals. That led to the decision, in agreement with the players’ association, to shorten the isolation period from 10 to six days, provided individuals who produced positive tests were asymptomatic and meet other testing standards.
Silver did not, however, address the question of the league charging fans NBA prices to view summer league rosters. That is in some ways not unlike the risk fans accept when they purchase tickets knowing players could go out with injuries. But the extent of the injuries has been unprecedented.
That also could lead to a dramatic impact on teams’ fortunes if some contenders lose homecourt advantage or even drop to play-in status because of stretches spent severely short-handed.
But as with so much about dealing with the pandemic, the league has seemed forced to make the best of a bad situation.
“I think there’s a recognition these are the cards we’ve been dealt,” Silver said. “Of course, there is a certain amount of unfairness that comes with playing in certain cases. My sense is things will work out by the end of the season.”