Sources: Rubio, Baynes yet to practice
Ricky Rubio, Aron Baynes, Elie Okobo and rookie Jalen Lecque didn’t make the initial July 7 trip with the Phoenix Suns to Orlando and still haven’t practiced with the team as of Sunday at Walt Disney World Resort, sources have informed The Arizona Republic.
The Suns were scheduled to have off Monday and return to practice Tuesday. They will play the first of their three exhibition game Thursday against Utah.
Phoenix (26-39) opens the first of eight regular-season “seedings” games July 31 against Washington (24-40) at ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex.
Looking at a little more than seven minutes of video snippets from Suns practices available for the media to review from July 10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, Rubio, BaynesOkobo and Lecque aren’t in any of the footage.
There is footage showing Suns’ players in what appears to be 5-on-5 with player-development coach Ben Strong on the court playing with them.
Phoenix Suns General Manager James Jones said the day before the Suns left for Orlando that some players would arrive “at a later date.” This was after The Republic reported two Suns tested positive for COVID-19 before the teams began mandatory testing for the virus.
Players have to quarantine in the bubble before they can practice. The NBA and NBPA announced Monday “of the 346 players tested for COVID-19 on the NBA campus since test results were last announced July 13, zero have returned confirmed positive tests.”
Suns head coach Monty Williams hasn’t verified who isn’t in Florida from the team for medical privacy reasons.
“I’m not going to talk about who’s here, who’s not here,” Williams said. “It’s a tough one for me because medically, I can’t talk about stuff. That’s where I just have to leave it. You guys (the media) know me. I don’t ever want to be rude to you guys. I understand you have a job to do, but there’s a limit on what I can talk about.”
Devin Booker, Deandre Ayton, Kelly Oubre Jr., Dario Saric, Cam Johnson, Jevon Carter, Mikal Bridges, Cheick Diallo, Cameron Payne and Ty Jerome have all done Zoom media interviews while Frank Kaminsky III did an interview with Sirius XM Barstool Radio channel from the Orlando Bubble.
Rubio, Baynes, Okobo and Lecque haven’t done any Zoom media interviews as of Sunday morning. Fifteen of the 16 Suns players are listed on their restart roster posted Monday by the NBA with two-way player Tariq Owens being the one not on it.
Have opinion about current state of the Suns? Reach Suns Insider Duane Rankin at dmrankin@gannett.com or contact him at 480-787-1240. Follow him on Twitter at @DuaneRankin.
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