What if coaches were to enter quarantine?

Options could be a video coordinator ... or Riley? (But Haslem won’t be coaching)

Wednesday night, Nick Nurse and his Toronto Raptors coaching staff were working at American-Airlines Arena against the Miami Heat. Friday night, they were out of NBA view, Nurse and five members of his staff quarantined due to health and safety protocols.

That got Heat coach Erik Spoelstra thinking, because it got the entire league thinking.

What if ?

Based on NBA coronavirus contact-tracing guidelines, and based on the proximity of the coaching staff on the court and at other venues, one coach out due to pandemic protocols well could lead to all coaches out.

“I mean,” Spoelstra said, “all of these cases cause you to pause and reflect, for sure.”

The Heat’s primary and close-proximity coaching staff includes Spoelstra, bench assistants Chris Quinn, Malik Allen and Caron Butler, as well as behind-the-bench staff Octavio De La Grana, Anthony Carter and Eric Glass.

It was that level of staff that the Raptors worked in the void of during their Friday victory over the visiting Houston Rockets, with coaching staffer Sergio Scariolo called in to lead the team and former Heat center Jamaal Magloire, who works out Raptors players for Toronto’s developmental wing, also taking a seat on the bench.

The imagery was stark.

“I feel like we have one of the deepest staffs,” Spoelstra said, with his team opening a two-game home series against the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday at American-Airlines Arena. “We have a lot of future head coaches on our staff. But if you went through that hypothetically, you took away all of our bench coaches and all of the behind-the-bench coaches, who knows what we’d do from there?”

Actually Spoelstra said he had an idea, as in ... come on down video coordinator Dan Bisaccio.

“Everybody is involved quite a bit,” Spoelstra said of his non-bench staff. “I think Dan Bisaccio could definitely run a film session, shootaround, practice, and probably coach a game.

“He probably doesn’t feel like he could, but it’s the institutional knowledge that he’s had over years

and years of being involved at so many different levels. And I think that’s the case for a lot of guys behind the scenes.”

Bisaccio is in his fifth season with the Heat, a regular fixture on the practice court. He previously spent two seasons with Marquette’s basketball program as a graduate assistant.

While veteran Raptors guards Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet assisted Scariolo through Friday’s game, it’s not as if the Heat could designate Udonis Haslem as player-coach.

With the advent of the salary cap in 1984-85, the NBA banned the role of player-coach, to avoid teams paying an additional “coaching” salary to a player beyond player payroll limits. Among past NBA player-coaches were former Heat coach Kevin Loughery, with the Philadelphia 76ers in 1973, as well as Lenny Wilkens, Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, Dave Cowens and Bob Pettit.

Of course, there also could be another option for the Heat.

Heat president Pat Riley, according to an NBA source, is in the same coronavirus protocols as the coaching staff, and therefore would be eligible to take a position on the bench in such an emergency situation. Heat executive and former Heat center Alonzo Mourning also has such level of protocol clearance.

Riley, 75, just three years older than San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, last coached during the 2007-08 season.

Also, while the Heat do not have a full coaching staff for their G League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce, which is dormant this season, former Heat forward Kasib Powell, a Skyforce assistant, remains under contract to the franchise.

Also available on the Heat staff are Remy Ndiaye, the team’s video specialist who has coached on the collegiate level and worked in player development for the Philadelphia 76ers, and shooting coach Rob Fodor, who has coached in the WNBA and on the minorleague level.

Former Heat coach Ron Rothstein and former assistant coaches Bob McAdoo, Keith Askins and Bob Staak also continue to work for the team.

LYNNE SLADKY/AP The Heat have options if Erik Spoelstra and his staff were to be forced out by NBA pandemic protocols.