Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Haslem: Play in isolation will breed ‘bad basketball’
Heat captain hopes mental wellness will be taken into account with any restart
Udonis Haslem appreciates the perspective.
There are far greater concerns at the moment than NBA basketball players earning NBA wages being limited with their access.
But he also appreciates the game and the potential of what playoff basketball can be about, which is why the Miami Heat captain also hopes that mental wellness will be factored into a potential league restart.
“You’ve got to give guys outlets, so they can stay mentally healthy,” he told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “Because, if not, the game is going to struggle, you’re going to get bad basketball. Guys aren’t going to be happy and it’s just not going to work.”
The initial discussion regarding a return amid this new coronavirus pandemic had been of creating a bubble, where players would report to a single location and be sequestered for the balance of the season.
“Are we going to [have] arm guards around the hotel?” National Basketball Players Association Executive Director
Michele Roberts told ESPN. “That sounds like incarceration to me.”
Since Roberts spoke and others questioned the bubble, NBA commissioner Adam Silver has spoken of more of a “campus” type of setting. With that approach, teams would be housed at a central, neutral site, where games would be staged, but players allowed to come and go as long as tested upon return.
Either way, Haslem said that even with the anticipated three-week training camp that would precede a return, it is the conditions of the resumption that could have the greatest impact.
“There’s a lot that goes on to prepare for a season mentally,” Haslem said, with this his 17th, all with the Heat. “There’s a lot that goes into going out there and performing at a high level every night, and especially when you put yourself in a playoff atmosphere. I was one of those guys who’s always needed different outlets for my mental health.
“So just moving forward, if that is something that we’re going to do, you just hope that both the league and the players’ association are smart about making sure we have different outlets, as far not just letting us out to play games and then locking us back up in the hotel, in quarantine.”
It is possible, if the NBA chooses to resume at least a portion of the regular season, which was suspended on March 11, players could be at such a neutral site for months, depending on how deep into the playoffs they advance.
“I’ve never been away from my family for that long,” said Haslem, who has won NBA championships with the Heat in 2006, ‘12 and ‘13. “Obviously, back in the day, when we would take the West Coast trips with the Big Three, when LeBron [James] first got here, it felt like a month.
“But, no, never, not even with my travels to Europe, away from the family, have I been away that long. So it will be tough. It will be definitely tough for a lot of us.”
Tougher, Haslem, 39, said, because of the relative isolation that would follow nothing but family time for more than two months.
“For me, to finally be a full-time dad, I never had that,” he said. “So this is my first time I actually have to be a full-time dad, when I’m actually enjoying it. I never had that opportunity.
“So having that opportunity to be home every day and be a full-time dad, that’s actually amazing. It’s fulfilling. It’s rejuvenating.”
And, soon, possibly to be fleeting, if there is an NBA return, with details still to be worked out about whether family members can travel with players to “campus” or even visit.
Still, Haslem said with last week’s opening of team practice facilities, including the Heat’s at AmericanAirlines Arena, at least one element of mental health has been favorably restored.
“It’s a breath of fresh air,” he said, “to get back to work.”