Healthy outlook rides on teamwork
Players understand how everyone needs to adhere to rules to remain virus-free
SAN ANTONIO — Later this week, Rudy Gay and the rest of the San Antonio Spurs will leave for an open-ended trip to Orlando, Fla., to restart the NBA season.
He already has decided what he wants to bring his two young sons back from Disney World. “A healthy father,” Gay said. No doubt a similar souvenir is on the wish list for family and friends of every NBA player and staff member headed to Central Florida this month.
The state remains a COVID-19 hotspot, though the league is adamant conditions inside the Disney “bubble” will be safer than amongst the general population.
Yet even under the strict safety measures the NBA has proscribed as team practice facilities opened, coronavirus keeps happening.
Nearly a third of the 22 Orlando-bound teams have been forced to close their gyms in the past week due to positive tests, seven clubs in all.
Other sports have experienced similar setbacks. Three Major League Baseball teams — the Houston Astros, Washington Nationals and St. Louis Cardinals — canceled planned workouts Monday after test results were delayed.
Gay, 33, has come to terms with the idea that some level of coronavirus transmission is inevitable as the NBA attempts its reboot.
“This is the reason why it’s so bad in America, because it can affect anybody at any time,” Gay said in a video conference after his Monday afternoon workout. “Even when you think you’re safe, you’re not. Even if you take us as athletes, we have these provisions of what we can and can’t do and people are still catching it.”
Still, Gay calls himself “optimistic” teams will be able to safely complete the season.
Getting to the finish line should prove to be a massive undertaking that will require cooperation from everyone involved.
As players began to reconvene last month to prepare for the resumption of the season, the NBA delivered a 113-page guidebook of safety protocols for life in the
Orlando bubble.
Some of the rules made intuitive sense, such as the requirement everyone on the campus don masks when out and about.
Others left some players scratching their heads.
For instance, ping pong matches inside the bubble are to be limited to one-on-one games, because doubles would not promote proper social distancing. However, once on the basketball court players will clearly be forced to eschew the recommended 6 feet of space in order to defend one another.
“The ping pong thing is ridiculous,” Spurs guard DeMar DeRozan said. “That part don’t make no sense to me. I got through 10 lines of the handbook and put it down because it becomes so frustrating and overwhelming.”
Even so, DeRozan and other Spurs vow to do their part to follow the rules and make the bubble as safe as possible.
When it comes to keeping COVID-19 out of the NBA campus, the need for teamwork extends outside the boundaries of the court.
“We all need to hold each other accountable,” Spurs center Jakob Poeltl said. “We’re going to share a practice court pretty soon. We’re going to share a locker room pretty soon. We’re putting each other at risk when we’re not being careful. I’m confident our guys are pretty smart about it.”
Even before players returned to the practice gym late last month, many of their text and Zoom conversations centered on best practices for avoiding coronavirus exposure.
Poeltl is confident the message has sunk in among the traveling party headed from San Antonio to Orlando on Thursday.
“We’ve been preaching it in our Zoom calls,” Poeltl said. “I think most of our guys — at least the ones I’ve talked to — are responsible enough to know it’s something where we’ve got to come together and be extra careful.”
Having spent the duration of the NBA shutdown in San Antonio, Poeltl has seen enough reckless behavior lately to believe life in the confines of the Orlando bubble will be more sanitary than staying in South Texas.
“As soon as our lockdown ended, I feel like everybody (in the city) went back to normal,” Poeltl said. “It felt like a normal summer day. It was hard to see. … When I’m hearing about parties and clubs and public areas where there’s 100 people within a couple feet of each other, those are the type of things that are more or less unnecessary and adding to the problem.”
Gay says he isn’t overly concerned about contracting the COVID-19 virus in Orlando.
His plan is to do his best to remain healthy, and then deal with the results.
“I’ve prepared myself, my own body to be able to fight it,” Gay said. “Being away from my family kinds of helps in that situation. All in all, it’s reality.”
For Gay, one of the most difficult aspects of the NBA reboot is having to tell his kids he is going to Disney World without them.
In a COVID-free universe, Gay and his wife Ecko likely would have celebrated their older son Clinton’s sixth birthday at the Magic Kingdom in May.
“My son’s birthday is May 6,” Gay said. “He said, ‘Usually every year we go to Disney World for my birthday.’ I was like, ‘Well, not this year.’
“Then come to find out we’re playing at Disney World. I haven’t told him that yet, because he’s going to want to visit. That day is going to be tough.”
With any luck, Gay will be able to give his children the best kind of memento — himself, back at home safe and sound.
Gay is relying on the rest of his Spurs teammates to help make that all-important souvenir happen.
“(The virus) is inevitable if you get a bunch of different individuals in one spot,” Gay said. “It’s going to be hard to keep things out of there. It just is. Everybody just has to do their part.”