THE health and safety protocols of the NBA might have been the most uttered words in the NBA for the past week. With the spiking cases of COVID-19 in the United States, players around the league caught the virus somewhere and somehow. This leads the NBA to postpone four games and almost three dozens of players from two-thirds of the teams in the NBA got restricted from playing to quarantine and contact trace.
The inherent risk of having the start of the regular season during the most family-oriented holidays of Christmas and New Year may have taken its toll. It brought out unlikely games where the bench players or the third-string players are forced to play against a healthy team with superstars – as in the case of Sixers and Nuggets. It turned the excitement to worries as the rematch of the 2020 NBA Eastern Conference Finals between the Celtics and Heat was postponed hours before tip-off. It led the Dallas Mavericks to shut down their practice facility as four players tested positive and uncertainty of future games awaits them too.
Despite the clear struggles in the NBA, the league said that it is not considering pausing this erratic season since they anticipated it and planned the schedule accordingly based on their spokesperson. The NBA and National Basketball Players Association put together a plan last year to finish the season in a bubble environment where nobody tested positive and no games were missed because of the virus.
However, it is not an option now due to its financial impact on the teams and mental strain to the players and staffs as it will require more time than the previous one if they will hold it again.
The NBA as a whole is committed to proceeding with playing and giving fans something to look forward to especially during these trying times. But, even with the best science and strict adherence to the protocols, they know that they were not in control and unfortunately there will still be some people who could catch it. The NBA’s guidelines are thorough and detailed from best practices for facility sanitation and regulations for traveling parties, up to the requisites for a player to return to the lineup after testing positive. However, it looks like that without a protected “bubble”, there is no set of rules that can make basketball safe.
How long can the NBA keep up with the virus? To what extent could the potential impact on the players forced to fill in night after night be? How can the teams sustain some kind of continuity and develop their chemistry if their roster is about to be depleted from time to time? Will Adam Silver pull the plug out? Will the vaccine be the savior of this turbulent season? Why is the NBA not behaving more on the side of caution?
So many questions but we have limited answers. Not totally helpless but flying with a seat belt doesn’t take away the danger.
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