Keeping the big picture in mind
Bucks stay focused amid new COVID-19 protocals
The harsh reality of playing their sport during a pandemic was never lost on the Milwaukee Bucks as they began this season. There was the slow onboard to training camp. Mask requirements and regular COVID-19 testing. Restrictions were put in place on who could access facilities, travel and where they could go on the road.
Then, new protocols were implemented in the past week that extended from the court to areas far off it.
All players now must wear masks while on the bench and they now wear sensors to track their proximity to one another during all team activities. Coaches now must wear masks if they were around other coaches or players even outside the team construct. If a player visited a private specialist of any kind – for physical therapy or personal
trainer – they must provide that information to the league.
The new measures were introduced as Philadelphia, Boston and Dallas were trying to manage not just positive COVID-19 tests but players having to be pulled from the team due to contact tracing. Washington star Bradley Beal was also sidelined due to a close contact to a positive Celtics player.
The Bucks have not been directly affected by the protocols, but they beat a Chicago Bulls team on New Year's Day that was without four players for health and safety reasons.
“I think the league is doing a good job of keeping us safe,” Giannis Antetokounmpo said of the measures. “Obviously, at the end of the day we're adults, you cannot force us to stay in a room. But at the end of the day if you go out its at your own risk. You've gotta be smart enough to take care of yourself because at the end of the day it doesn't just affect you, it affects us as a team and it affects our families also. So we've got to keep one another accountable. It's a real thing, but we're doing the right thing, I think the league is doing the right thing and hopefully in one month, two months, three months, it can go back to normal and we can look at this COVID-19 and put it in the past."
For the players their new “normal” may not be routine just yet – especially with the early wakeup calls for testing – but D.J. Wilson allowed that after spending so much time in the bubble at the end of last season, whatever the protocols are is an easy adjustment.
“It's definitely changing every day, but I don't think we should really complain about it,” Khris Middleton said. “I don't know if guys are complaining about it or not but I think the league, they're just trying to stay proactive and find ways to keep us the safest and allow us to continue to go out there and do our job, which is to play. So with these tracking things, or the masks during the games, they're just trying to find a way to keep everybody safe, limit their exposure to COVID or anything out there as best as they can.”
But, for players like Bobby Portis and rookies Jordan Nwora and Sam Merrill, all of whom had their seasons come to a stop in March, everything about what is happening is new.
“It's definitely weird,” Nwora said. “Even in college I didn't experience it because they just shut everything down.
So this is the first I'm seeing it firsthand. There's definitely a weird feeling to it. Another weird thing was the last game having to wear our masks on the bench for the first time. It was mandatory. It's definitely weird. Hopefully soon things will start trending in a better direction and we'll see what happens.”
On the coaching side of things, Mike Budenholzer heard of what 76ers head coach Doc Rivers had to manage Saturday night with seven players available to him (eight were active but one was injured and would not be asked to play). And earlier in the year Houston head coach Stephan Silas almost had to coach a team with eight players due to safety concerns, but a game against Oklahoma City was eventually postponed because the Rockets couldn't field a healthy eight.
But as long as a team can field the minimum number of players, the precedent has been set that the team will have to suit up that day. So, the idea of potentially having to play a game in such a scenario has already been thought about.
“Times like this, as you're doing and talking about all the safety protocols and all the things that we need to do to keep our players safe and our staff safe, usually they're kind of laced with a we'll have to play occasionally with eight men active, or nine,” Budenholzer said. “If you've been in the league a long time, even in non-COVID times you come across that either with a team you're with or going against a team and you just kind of tackle it as it happens, as it comes because you don't know which eight or which nine are going to be there or who's going to be out. There's a certain degree of game plan that you just take on as it comes
The Bucks now leave the comforts and routine of home to begin a nine-day stretch where they travel to Orlando for a game Monday, head to Detroit on Wednesday, come back home to face Dallas on Friday and then head to Brooklyn to play the Nets on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
They'll have their daily reminders – and the league may institute more protocols by the time that stretch is over – but as more teams are having to work through shortened rosters for health and safety reasons the Bucks are out to make sure they keep the bigger picture in mind as they work day to day.
“It's been an adjustment, but I think that's what life is all about,” Portis said. “Life is about making adjustments, life is all about change and doing things out of the ordinary sometimes.
“We think it's vital for us to take each protocol seriously. Obviously this virus is real. It's killing people. It's doing things to harm people. It's held people out of their jobs. It's really an abnormal place we haven't ever seen before. For all guys to really lock in and take it seriously, I think that's big.”