Knicks watching, but not testing, players
As commissioner Adam Silver was singling out New York as a hotbed for the coronavirus outbreak — and as the Nets were labeling their blanket testing as a public service — the Knicks issued a statement explaining why they haven’t tested any of their players.
Knicks players have also flown home during the hiatus despite a recommendation from the NBA against it.
“We have been following the recommendations of local and national health officials and continue to monitor our players closely,” the statement read. “As of now, with our players remaining asymptomatic, none of them have been tested for COVID-19. We will remain in close contact with health officials and the NBA.”
Just minutes before the Knicks’ statement, Silver said he was unsurprised that four members of the Nets – including Kevin Durant – tested positive for the virus. Three of those players were asymptomatic, according to the team. Five of the seven NBA players who tested positive were asymptomatic.
“In terms of the last four from the Brooklyn Nets, I honestly was not all that surprised,” Silver said on ESPN. “I think based on what we’re hearing and given the lack of testing that’s available, my sense is especially in the New York area, that if you took almost any random group of New Yorkers, that it would be likely — increasingly likely — that there are going to be some positive tests.”
Beyond living and working in the hotbed zone of New York, the Knicks played against at least three players this month who tested positive – Utah’s Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell on March 4, then Detroit’s Christian Wood on March 8.
Players flying on planes after exposure is potentially problematic because they can spread the virus unknowingly to other areas of the country. Mitchell Robinson and Elfrid Payton reportedly flew back to the New Orleans, for instance. The league told players they can travel but are advising them to remain in the team’s market.
Silver said eight teams have been tested in full along with players from other teams who exhibited symptoms. “This is what led to some of the testing in the league in the first place. You could put our players in a category that some would refer to as super spreaders,” Silver said. “That is they are young people who are working in close proximity to each other. They are traveling at great frequency. They are regularly in large groups, including the public. And the young people in particular, a large number of them are asymptomatic, and if they do have symptoms, they’re relatively mild. And so what’s happening with that group is that until really the government at all levels started to clamp down, I think because it wasn’t affecting them so much personally, they might not have understood sort of the magnitude of the crisis in our country.”
The Nets said Wednesday they privately paid for their tests after “several of our players and staff had symptoms.”
“We sourced the tests through a private company and paid for them ourselves because we did not want to impact access to CDC’s public resources,” the statement read. “Using the test results, we were able to take immediate precautions and strictly isolate the players who tested positive. If we had waited for players to exhibit symptoms, they might have continued to pose a risk to their family, friends and the public.
“Our hope is that by drawing attention to the critical need for testing asymptomatic positive carriers, we can begin to contain the spread and save lives. We believe it is not only the right thing to do for our players and their families, it is the responsible thing to do from a medical and epidemiological standpoint.”