Covid-caused uncertainty taking a toll on sports world
MINNEAPOLIS — How quickly NBA teams get their COVID-19 test results back has become more crucial than how rapidly they can bring the ball up court, and the most important data they analyze now concerns how many players, coaches and staff members are in COVID protocols and unavailable for games.
There was a sense early this season, as arenas and stadiums reopened their doors to fans, that even though COVID hadn’t completely disappeared, sports and life were becoming less perilous. Vaccines had become widely available. Elaborate rules were put in place in the hopes of keeping athletes and fans safe. We could eat at restaurants again. We got to exhale.
Now, we’re holding our collective breath again. The surge of the Omicron variant has pushed the world back into a state of uncertainty and is compromising the quality of competition in every sport.
Rosters change from hour to hour and minute to minute as players enter or leave the NBA’S health and safety protocols. Lakers coach Frank Vogel started the day believing he’d have Malik Monk in the lineup on Friday but wouldn’t have Russell Westbrook. The opposite proved true. Later, Vogel awoke from an afternoon nap to learn Austin Reaves had entered the protocols. The real nightmare happened while he was awake.
“It’s just like a revolving door of what-ifs so far,” Lebron James said after the shorthanded Lakers were outmuscled and outplayed by the only slightly less depleted Minnesota squad in a 110-92 loss to the Timberwolves at the Target Center.
The core of James, Anthony Da
vis and Westbrook should have been enough for the Lakers (16-14) to extend their three-game winning streak. But with James and Davis combining for only 10 shots in the first half, Davis hurting his ankle in the first half and injuring his knee in the second half badly enough to require an MRI on Saturday and Minnesota's KarlAnthony Towns rampaging for 28 points and 10 rebounds, the Lakers faded after pulling within 61-58 with 7:40 left in the third quarter. “We had a good opportunity in the third quarter, down three, but we just let it go again,” James said.
The Timberwolves lost starter Anthony Edwards and reserve Taurean Prince to COVID protocols during the day on Friday, but they compensated with a 61-36 rebounding edge and the dominance of Towns, who was hospitalized with COVID early in 2021 and lost more than a half-dozen family members to the virus.
Towns said he got a booster shot “right away, before it was even a thing, before the NBA was really talking about it,” and he was especially relieved to get a negative test result after the team's shootaround on Friday in view of Edwards and Prince being added to the protocol list. “We have a great medical staff. I knew they were being very proactive with the situation,” Towns said. “They did a great job of handling it and minimizing the damage.”
Vogel said the uncertainty over players' health availability is unlike anything he has dealt with before. “It's just craziness. There's chaos involved,” he said. “Like, every few hours you're hearing a new guy is out — or in this case, a new guy is in that you thought was out. It's just a crazy time.
“But we're not letting it impact us in terms of trying to win games. No excuses, man. We've got enough to win a game [on Friday]. We didn't play well enough.”
On Friday alone the Lakers regained Westbrook (who flew in from Dallas at midafternoon) but didn't get Monk back, as they'd expected, because Monk had been cleared to travel but not to play. Losing Reaves' threepoint shooting and energy hurt. Remember Reaves being hugged by his teammates after he hit the winning three-point shot at Dallas on Wednesday? It was exhilarating for him and for them, but it might also have contributed to a positive test for Reaves.
With Monk, Talen Horton-tucker, Avery Bradley and Dwight Howard still out, the NBA allowed the Lakers to sign veteran guard Isaiah Thomas to a 10-day contract with a hardship exception, and Thomas had 19 points in just over 21 minutes on Friday. There was even a Chaundee Brown Jr. sighting in the first half and a Jay Huff appearance in the second half.
COVID'S impact on the Lakers has gone beyond the roster and the absence of assistant coach Phil Handy: Radio analyst Mychal Thompson tested positive and said in a tweet on Friday he was feeling ill, and TV play-byplay voice Bill Macdonald had to quarantine after missing the Lakers' game at Dallas. MacDonald had a subsequent negative test, and if he produces a second negative result he could rejoin the Lakers in Chicago for the finale of the trip, on Sunday.
That's if Sunday's game actually takes place. The Bulls' previous two games were canceled because 10 players entered the protocols and they were isolated all week. They were cleared to practice on Saturday. They might have enough bodies to reach the minimum of eight thanks to Demar Derozan exiting protocols on Friday, but is it fair to them or to fans to force them to play after a long layoff and with a lineup that could be heavy on G-league players?
COVID isn't finished with the sports world or the world as a whole. College basketball games are being postponed or, for UCLA, canceled entirely. Through Friday, the NHL had postponed 20 games; about 30 Calgary Flames players and staff members have been placed in protocols, and the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday had 16 healthy skaters, two short of normal. The Nashville Predators were without seven players and their entire coaching staff on Thursday. Even the NFL relaxed its the-show-must-go-on stance and postponed three games this weekend, including moving the Rams-seahawks game to Tuesday.
So far, no major professional league has paused its season. Will that happen for the NBA? “I'm not sure,” Westbrook said.
That's the problem. We're back to a world of uncertainty, with all the physical and mental toll that will cause. Sports are supposed to be fun and games, but the “fun” part is fading fast.