Rivers gives voice to rising concerns
New 76ers coach worries season at risk amid recent virus surge
The first day of NBA training camp is supposed to be accompanied by brimming optimism, a time for players and coaches all taking those first steps toward what they hope is a championship.
Such was the case Tuesday — in a very tempered fashion.
The first preseason camps of the coronavirus era are formally open, with teams limited for now to individual sessions with one coach and one player at one basket, all of this starting to happen as the pandemic continues raging and more and more Americans are testing positive.
“I’m very concerned if we can pull this off,” new 76ers coach Doc Rivers said. He probably isn’t alone in that thinking. Wizards coach Scott Brooks said his team already has seen one player test positive, and Magic coach Steve Clifford said Magic center Mo Bamba — who tested positive several months ago — is still “a ways away” from being ready to play again.
The Warriors said they had two positives, meaning that the club won’t start full-scale practice until at least Monday, six days before its preseason opener.
There will be more, of course. Probably many more.
Rivers, noting how the virus is becoming a major issue for college football and the NFL in terms of getting games played, said the effect on an NBA team losing a key player or two for even a short period could essentially wreck a season.
“In football they play once a week and they have 1,000 players, so when you miss three or four players, you can still get away with it,” Rivers said. “If we miss three or four players, we’re in trouble, especially with the amount of games. We’re playing three and four games a week. So, if one of our guys or two of our key guys get the virus and they miss 10 days, 14 days, that can be eight games in a 72-game season. That can knock you out in the playoffs.”
The Wizards didn’t say what player tested positive, though Brooks said the player has yet to be around the team in Washington and that “everybody else is ready to go.” Bamba was diagnosed with COVID-19 on June 11, played sparingly in the Magic’s first two games at Walt Disney World during the NBA’s restart there this summer, then sat out the rest of the season for additional testing.
“Right now, we’re hoping that he can get healthy enough to get back on the floor,” Clifford said. “He’s going to be able to do some of the things early in camp, but he’s going to be limited. He’s had kind of a tough stretch here in terms of how much he’s been able to do. We have to be prudent and make sure we’re moving along with him in an intelligent manner.”
Players and coaches are being tested daily and that is likely to be the plan for throughout the season. Protocols that the league sent to teams late last week suggested that, in many cases, it would take at least 12 days for a player to be able to return to play after testing positive for the coronavirus.
The NBA is working with BioReference — a company that also handled testing in the bubble, at the league’s expense of about $140 per test — for standardized leaguewide testing, and that company will likely have personnel traveling with teams this season to handle testing on the road. The league has said that its testing program does not impact BioReference’s nationwide testing capabilities or use public health resources in a time where more and more Americans are seeking testing.
“I’m pretty comfortable with it,” Celtics coach Brad Stevens said. “As we saw with the bubble, the NBA crosses every ‘t’ and dots every ‘i.’ ”
Some teams will be able to start those group practices — and 5-on-5 sessions — Friday. Most NBA clubs will be able to start Sunday. Injuries will be a worry, as will conditioning, and entering Tuesday no team even had a final copy of the schedule for its first 36 games so matters like travel arrangements and seeing where days off can fall also remain unsettled.
“As a coach, you want to go in with your team concerns being more basketball,” Rivers said. “And I think every coaches’ concerns right now are probably nonbasketball.”