Connaughton awaits clearance to play in games
Pat Connaughton didn’t play Sunday night when the Milwaukee Bucks faced the Houston Rockets. Starting point guard Eric Bledsoe didn’t, either.
The two Bucks who tested positive for COVID-19 last month are feeling good and eager to resume playing games with their teammates, but the team is taking things slow, making sure both men are truly in game shape before throwing them back into a game.
For Connaughton, who on Sunday addressed the media for the first time since arriving at the Walt Disney World resort more than a week ago, it’s just a waiting game. He and Bledsoe are playing 5-on-5 and 3-on-3 in practices while also getting other individual work and lifting in, but their timeline for return remains out of their control.
“For the most part, it’s all based off how we feel and I feel great and I’d like to probably do more than sometimes they let me do,” Connaughton said, “but they’re smarter than I am so I’m just making sure I’m prepared.”
Connaughton’s positive test threw a wrench in what had otherwise been a productive hiatus for him. His daily home workouts, which consisted of a mix of team-prescribed activities as well as running hills by the lakefront, had gotten the 27-year-old into what he believes was even better shape than when the NBA season was put on hold.
But then the positive test came and with it a mandatory quarantine period in which he couldn’t do anything active. Unlike Bledsoe, who said he was asymptomatic throughout the time he was COVID-19 positive, Connaughton had to contend with some mild symptoms while his body warded off the coronavirus.
“I had a little muscle aches, which was a little weird, lasted about 12 hours,” Connaughton said. “Other than that it was just your normal fever, maybe a little bit of lack of energy, maybe a little loss of taste, the things that, quite frankly, I have when I have had the flu or a head cold or something like that. The only difference was that little period where I had some muscle aches. After about five days I pretty much felt healthy.”
Connaughton was inactive due to the virus for about 19 days leading up to his arrival in Florida on July 25. While stuck in his hotel room for a couple of days awaiting his final clearance to join the NBA’s campus, Connaughton was cleared to resume physical activity. He hopped on the Peloton bike in his room multiple times to pass the time and get his body moving again.
With more than a week of practices under his belt, he’s hoping to get cleared again soon — this time by the Bucks’ medical staff so he can play in games again. It will be even better if Bledsoe can be cleared along with him.
“My body feels great,” Connaughton said. “Now it’s just about making sure I’m ready for that game type of shape, which you can’t really simulate, so you got to just do your best and prepared when your number’s called.”