Questions abound after Raptors game is postponed
The Raptors have finally fallen off the NBA’s COVID-19 tightrope, and what remains to be seen is when they might get back on it.
For the first time this season, the Raptors have had a game postponed, losing Sunday night’s scheduled home date with the Chicago Bulls because of the league’s far-reaching health and safety protocols.
Whether they will be able to play their final two games before the all-star break — Tuesday in Tampa against Detroit, and Thursday in Boston — remains unclear. The whole situation that led to not having the requisite eight players available Sunday is murky.
The Raptors have been consistently quiet for the past year when it comes to releasing information about the health of their staff relating to the coronavirus, so finding the precise timeline and circumstances that led to Sunday’s postponement has been impossible.
The fate of their next two games depends on how many members of the team have tested positive, if any, and how many are in contact tracing. Players and coaches were isolating at their Tampa residences Sunday and each will be tested daily, as they have been all season.
“Because of positive test results and ongoing contact tracing within the Raptors, the team will not have the league-required eight available players to proceed with the scheduled game against the Bulls,” the NBA said in a Sunday morning statement.
How long that isolation remains in place and how many negative test results are required before full team activities can resume will determine their near-future.
On Saturday, the lone player listed out for Sunday’s game was Pascal Siakam, who also didn’t play Friday because of health and safety protocols. Coach Nick Nurse and five members of his staff missed that game as well.
The remaining players — all 14 listed as active for Friday night’s win over the Houston Rockets in Tampa — would have returned negative test results twice that day, and then been tested again Saturday.
Playing the game against the Rockets was the only logical thing to do at the time. As with each of the Raptors’ first 33 games — and every other one played throughout the league this season — the game-day testing protocols would have ensured everyone was COVID-19 free at tip off. Postponing that game would have run counter to what the league has done all season.
The Rockets were scheduled to play at home against Memphis on Sunday night.
Neither the league nor the team made public the results of Saturday’s tests on the Raptors, but it’s apparent there were either some positives or that some players had been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19. How that breaks down will determine the length of any quarantine/isolation and when the Raptors might play again.
Following the two games still scheduled for this week, the Raptors don’t play again until March 11 against Atlanta in Tampa. The NBA all-star break runs from March 5 to 10. No Raptors were selected for the March 7 showcase.