Good health, good cheer? Not this year
NEW YORK — So much for good health and good cheer.
Both are in short supply in the NBA this Christmas, especially for the 10 teams that will be playing on the holiday.
Superstars are sitting. Supposed super teams are struggling.
The games will go on, which is the most important thing during a time when the NBA has been forced to postpone nine of them because of a coronavirus surge.
But there is a chance they will go on without Kevin Durant, Luka Doncic and Trae Young, who all were in the NBA’S health and safety protocols in the days leading into the fivegame slate. Giannis Antetokounmpo could be returning to action for the Milwaukee Bucks just in time for Christmas, as he isn’t listed on the Bucks’ injury report for Saturday’s game.
“You don’t want anybody out, whether it’s injury, COVID illness, whatnot,” Milwaukee’s Khris Middleton said.
It’s not going to be the one NBA fans — or sports fans in general — envisioned when looking forward to these holidays.
Sports has not been able to escape the surge in coronavirus cases driven by the new omicron variant. Bowl games are being canceled, teams are being forced to pull out of college postseason matchups, NFL players have been sidelined, and the NHL started its Christmas break
early and its players are not playing in the upcoming Olympics.
In the NBA, more than 100 players have gone into protocols, leaving teams in some cases forced to sign players just to have the minimum eight required to play. As injury reports lengthened throughout December, with the Brooklyn Nets and Chicago Bulls both having 10 players in protocols at times, including Bulls coach Billy Donovan who entered Friday, there were questions about whether the NBA would be better off just pausing the season.
“The league’s in a tough position,” Nets coach Steve Nash said. “Do you shut it down and extend it? Or what do you do, because you could shut it down and still the West Coast theoretically could get hit by the virus later and then what, we shut it down again? ”
His Nets visit the Lakers in the prime-time spot on the schedule. The other games: Atlanta at New York, Boston at Milwaukee, Golden State at Phoenix
and Dallas at Utah.
Christmas is traditionally the NBA’S biggest day of the season, often with catchy commercials and special uniforms to promote the games. It’s where Shaquille O’neal and Kobe Bryant first faced off as opponents, where the most must-see teams or players get the spotlight to themselves.
The schedule, when it was unveiled in the offseason, was headlined by Brooklyn’s Big Three going to Los Angeles to visit Lebron James and the Lakers, who were expected to be a Western Conference powerhouse.
Now the Nets are a patchwork crew that could be down to a single superstar, with James Harden released from protocols Thursday but Durant and Kyrie Irving still sidelined. Maybe that will be good enough against a Lakers team that is without Anthony Davis because of a knee injury and is perhaps the league’s biggest disappointment at 16-17 after a four-game losing streak.
Young was supposed to start the day at Madison Square Garden, where he was last seen bowing to the crowd after leading the Hawks to a victory to close out Game 5 of a first-round playoff series against the Knicks.
NBA institutes booster mandate
Every NBA team, by Dec. 31, must arrange a booster-shot event for players, staff and family members, the latest mandate from the league in its quest to get its skyrocketing virus numbers under control. The NBA has told teams its data shows that boosters substantially reduce a person’s risk of being infected, and one out of every three players still aren’t boosted — even though 97 percent of the league is vaccinated.
That comes as the league’s Jan. 5 booster mandate looms for all eligible scorer’s table personnel, team attendants, and other staff who have in-person interaction with players or referees. In almost all cases, if people in those positions don’t have boosters by Jan. 5, they won’t be allowed to continue in those jobs.
Odds and ends
Miami Heat center Dewayne Dedmon is expected to miss a week or two with a sprained ligament in his left knee. … The Lakers signed Darren Collison to a 10-day contract, getting the point guard to return to the NBA after he retired in 2019.