NBA commissioner Adam Silver and the league office understood the complications and potential threats looming with the coronavirus pandemic in January. The United States topped 4,000 deaths in a single day for the first time last week, according to a Johns Hopkins University study. For now, it is continuously spiking around the country.
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Silver on Dec. 30 addressed a group of team governors; general managers and presidents; coaches; and NBPA leadership such as Michele Roberts, Kyle Lowry and Dwight Powell. The league office provided additional guidance to these constituents stemming from the advice and notice it received from the top health and medical experts.
“January is going to be the worst month,” Silver told the group, according to sources. “We are optimistic about improvements in February … after we get through the darkest days.”
On Sunday, the NBA postponed its second game of the season — the Heat versus Celtics in Boston after a Miami player returned an inconclusive test. It left the Heat without the required eight dressed players to proceed with the game due to contact tracing. The Celtics themselves only had the minimum of eight required players available due to their own ongoing issues with contact tracing.
As of Sunday, over two dozen NBA players remained in quarantine or isolation due to the league’s health and safety protocols, with nine teams having a player who has tested positive, sources said. One player also tested positive recently for the second time in a year, sources said. For any sport playing games in-market during a pandemic, this is to be expected and part of the reality being encountered in the real world.
The Celtics have seven players part of the health and safety protocols: Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Tristan Thompson, Javonte Green, Grant Williams, Robert Williams and Semi Ojeleye. Tatum and one other player tested positive for coronavirus, sources said. Thompson and Grant Williams have a few days remaining on their seven-day quarantine. Three other players are expected to have to undergo seven-day quarantines due to contact tracing protocols, sources said. This would leave the Celtics with just enough dressed players to play in a regulation game.
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Elsewhere due to health protocols, Denver is without Michael Porter Jr. Dallas is without Maxi Kleber, Josh Richardson, Dorian Finney-Smith and Jalen Brunson. Kleber, who was listed questionable to play Monday, entered isolation on Sunday and was expected to quarantine for at least 10-to-14 days, sources said. Philadelphia is without Seth Curry, Tobias Harris, Matisse Thybulle, Shake Milton and Vincent Poirier.
Inside the league office, there has been no conversation about pausing the season. Sources said that on the Board of Governors call on Friday, there was discussion about how the NBA’s coronavirus case rate has fared better than the NFL’s at the same juncture of the season, how comfortable fans could be when they’re able to return to arenas and vaccines are more generally available, as well as continuing to be vigilant. The status of the season was not mentioned — at all, sources said.
The NBA had a successful restart to the 2019-20 season amid the pandemic, conducting a bubble season from July to October, crowning a champion and, most importantly, registering a total of zero positive tests throughout. In many ways, NBA teams and players must now behave as similar as possible to when they were in the bubble. After that experience, in which so many were asked to be isolated from the rest of the world for months on end, there is a widely held preference for all players, coaches and staffers to be in their home markets rather than confined to a closed off bubble environment. But complacency could set in as a result of this, too.
As witnessed during the NFL and MLB season starts during the pandemic, it is a rocky beginning that everyone must become accustomed to. This is a new time, a unique period in our history.
So far, multiple sources across the league cite several interactions among Tier 1 players, coaches and traveling party staffers that could cause unintended exposure:
• Meals with four-to-five Tier 1 individuals and others present.
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• Outsiders interacting with Tier 1 members. From the NBA’s official health and safety protocols: “… members of the Traveling Party may be visited in their individual hotel rooms by up to two guests (e.g., family members or longtime close personal friends who reside in the city where the team is staying).”
• Rival teams sharing meals with each other in a home city.
• Mask-less, intimate conversations are happening in close proximity on the court after games. Around the league, there is growing belief that pre- and post-game fraternizing — albeit with right intentions — should be masked conversation with some physical distance. This was shown when Wizards star Bradley Beal was ruled out on Saturday against the Heat due to an investigation into his exposure to Tatum when the two spoke in close contact on the court after the Celtics’ win over Washington on Friday.
None of these actions are wrong, or reprehensible — but should one person test positive following those interactions, all of the remainder of individuals involved would be subject to the league’s contact-tracing policy. Players who enter the protocol for contact tracing are typically required to quarantine for seven days due to exposure.
The room for error shrinks in that instance and leaves teams and players in risky positions. It can all be so fragile. The league’s contact tracing is prudent, but could stricter behavioral changes be made soon to the protocols?
The NBA and its players union have previously-set dates in the near future to discuss updating league protocols, multiple sources said. In the meantime, the games will push on.
(Photo: AP/Ashley Landis)
