❚ NBA’s critical week,
The NBA has it all figured out. Four players and 10 coaches per team are permitted to return to team practice facilities this week, with eight players allowed July 1.
Teams will start arriving in Orlando on July 7 for training camp at Disney Wide World of Sports, and will live in a “bubble” for what could be a little more than three months. Regular-season games are slated to tip off on the complex’s three courts July 30.
The next two weeks could determine if that timeline remains a viable option.
Players are scheduled to be tested for
COVID-19 at the team facilities. While the league is prepared for some positive tests, what happens if a significant number of players test positive?
Players and teams don’t have to announce who tests positive, but the league will know.
Major League Baseball had to shut down all spring training sites last week. There were reportedly 40 positive tests involving MLB personnel, including five Phillies players and three team staffers.
The NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning also closed their training facility in the wake of multiple positive tests by players and staffers, and Toronto Maple Leafs star Auston Matthews reportedly tested positive, too.
Along with the number of positive NBA tests being important, so is who tests positive. The more big-name players are on the list, the worse it becomes for the league.
While some could argue positive tests now would be a good thing by having time to quarantine before the real games occur, too many positive tests could mean an end to the restart.
If there’s a threshold that would result in a second suspension of the season, it hasn’t become public knowledge.
Players have been voicing concern with being in Florida, where the number of positive tests remains high.
Orange County, where most of the players will stay, instituted a policy over the weekend requiring residents to wear protective masks in public.
There will also be Disney employees coming and going. The players are aware of this and some aren’t particularly fond of the idea.
Don’t be surprised if more than a few players choose not to participate in Orlando due to health concerns.
Maybe there won’t be too many positive tests and everything will proceed as the NBA has planned through the midOctober conclusion of the NBA Finals.
But there’s also a real possibility for dozens of positive tests, which could create a difficult decision for a league that has crowned a champion every year since its inception in 1949-50.