The NBA is pushing full speed ahead with their plan to resume the season at the end of July, but the Orlando “bubble” could end up being a disaster. Bear in mind that the NBA’s plan has little to do with whether or not it’s safe to resume basketball, but everything to do with the significant financial impact of failing to resume basketball. The NBA is willing to risk rampant infection for the sake of the millions at stake, and their resolve could be put to the test earlier than expected.
As coronavirus testing for players heading to Orlando starts today, teams are bracing for significant numbers of positive tests. One Western Conference playoff team had four positives in past few weeks, per sources. Full training camps start on July 11 at Disney.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 23, 2020
The entire premise of a bubble system is that those in the bubble will be healthy and unable to spread the virus to others. But as the NBA begins testing, Adrian Wojnarowski reports that teams are bracing for a significant numbers of positive tests.
If a player tests positive, they’ll face an extended quarantine period before they can join their team in Orlando.
It's a bigger concern for non-guaranteed playoff teams to lose players to extended quarantine before Orlando. Playoff teams worried less about needing key players for seeding games in August have more time to get players back to shape. All are worried about soft-tissue injuries. https://t.co/gp77boedso
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 23, 2020
And all of this, the testing, the bringing together 22 teams, it’s basically being done to give playoff teams a warm-up.
Remember too: Even among the six teams trying to reach the playoffs via a play-in, none believe this restart is worth risking injuries on players that could carry into next season. For some, Orlando will be an extended summer league to develop young players and protect veterans.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 23, 2020
Sure, as Kings fans we’ll be hoping the Kings can sneak into the playoffs, but ultimately the NBA is putting extra teams at risk of both injuries and illness (an illness than can be fatal even in young, healthy people), so playoff teams will be in game shape.
All of this is happening as the count of confirmed cases and hospitalizations in Florida are rapidly rising. From the most recent numbers Orlando isn’t being hit as hard as other parts of the state, but Florida is one of the biggest hot spots in the country for COVID-19 infections.
James Herbert of CBS Sports spoke with Zach Binney, an epidemiologist at Oxford College of Emory University, who assessed the NBA’s plan as follows:
Binney initially thought it was reasonable for Disney personnel to enter and exit the campus every day, given the mitigation procedures: a lack of face-to-face contact with players, required use of face coverings and symptom screening. Now, the increased number of infections means that the baseline chance of a staffer being infected will be significantly higher, as will the difficulty of preventing an outbreak in the NBA. Binney borrowed a metaphor from the team executive that called the campus a “mesh hat” rather than a “bubble” in a story by NBC Sports’ Tom Haberstroh.
“If it’s drizzling, maybe your head can stay dry,” Binney said. “If it’s pouring, that’s a really hard ask for a mesh hat.”
It is a “full-on rainstorm” in Orlando, in Binney’s estimation.
The reasons for the NBA resuming the season are clear. There are very powerful men who stand to lose millions of dollars if the season were to simply end. There’s a demand for the product as people want sports, and want to crown a champion for this season. There are players like LeBron James, who want to play rather than miss an opportunity for another title before his career winds down. But the NBA could still be setting themselves up for a healthcare disaster in Orlando.
Given all the health concerns, injury concerns, the rising case count in Florida, not to mention the current social environment and the Black Lives Matter movement, I can’t help but feel the NBA is making is a huge mistake.
If the NBA comes back as planned, I’ll be watching. Aside from writing about basketball, I just love the sport. But at a certain point sports aren’t worth the risk, and I wonder where the NBA will draw that line.
boo. Gif fail!
Hold onto your butts.
I’m with you Greg. There is too much to lose in the name of money. I, for one, don’t think there is a way to create this “bubble.” What about all the ancillary staff, from hotel employees, facilities managers and workers, food prep, etc. Are all of those local residents and employees gonna be held within the bubble as well?
The NBA runs the very real chance of infecting their own, and this includes dozens of coaching staffs with folks well into their 70s. If just one player gets it and it goes undiagnosed for days, they run the very real risk of the majority of the NBA getting it. Even in a “bubble” the contact tracing will be a nightmare.
And Florida still is mandating very little in their state (while it blows up) – masks are only “recommended”.
Having a guy like DeSantis running the show there was always a wild card for the NBA.
What a truly sad thing that someone commenting on ineffective healthcare policy gets downvoted.
Maybe DeSantis reads TKH!
I’m just glad this system wasn’t in place at StR during the early Cousins’ era. ð
There’d have been more red numbers on your account than Theranos’ financials!
It’s a good thing there wasn’t an island to be voted off, either.
You’d have been down-voted into oblivion!!!
In Indiana they practice different than
the West coast teams.. Pandemic .. meh
Nikola Jokic just tested positive. Shut it down.
Yep, things ain’t looking good right now.
It’s all about the Benjamins./cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19867904/Screen_Shot_2018_06_06_at_4.24.38_PM.png)
Sounds like it would just be an ‘asterisk’ championship anyway:
“…For some, Orlando will be an extended summer league to develop young players and protect veterans…” -Woj
Exactly; and as more players drop out, it will be exactly that. And as much as some people would want to say otherwise; if the Kings slip in via the play-in into the play-offs that play-off appearance will also have an asterisk next to it.
It won’t keep this FO from crowing victory, though. Premature extensions galore!
If the Kings do make the Asterisk Playoffs, it would allow them to finally stop posting decades-old Jason Williams highlights on their Facebook account.
Again, it sounds like the Play-in games are to get the playoff teams ready. They amount to the US Select team warmups.
If I was a young athlete, I would have a tough time justifying such a high risk of getting a virus that might leave permanent damage to my lungs. As much planning that has gone into this, there is just no way to truly mitigate the hazards. I am hoping for the best, but in speaking with my neighbor (emergency room physician and works at the UW Virology Research Clinic), she thought this was a terrible risk for teams, and their staffs.
Not to mention that the players are not only risking themselves, but all the people they interact with.
Yep. Totally agreed here. Athletes don’t have to die for this to be a problem. Even a minor amount of long-term respiratory damage could be the difference between a world class athlete and a G League player. It’s risky.
It will be weird when the best players have to sit out for multiple games because they tested positive for COVID. The winning teams will be the healthy teams.
Houston already has an asterisk for the Astros title. Do we stick with the theme and have the Rockets win the title? Asterisk city is ready for the challenge.
Ok but what if the Kings win the title this year.
Then the Kings and L*kers will be tied for number of Asterisk Championships.
Clearly, the NBA cannot cancel the season now that Corey Brewer has signed with the Kings. How could they deprive us of this reunion?
Heck, just make Corey player-coach!
New York Magazine had a very direct point on this the other day.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/the-only-thing-that-would-stop-sports-now.html
I was extremely ambivalent and skeptical of sports returning several weeks ago, and that was before the current nightmarish surge due to America’s and Americans’ failure to take this seriously. Shut it down. There’s no dollar amount where this is worth the risk, especially with the worsening situation in Florida.
as much as I want to watch basketball – I agree with this, the risks are looking to be too high.
I was just discussing with Ms. Mookie about our personal plans on protection are starting to look like around 2 years before things go remotely back to normal, and that’s assuming a vaccine is developed 18 months in or therabouts.
I couldn’t fathom if I were a player, having to risk my respiratory system for 8 games of basketball, when COVID has documented cases of long-term respiratory harm, and peak respiration is key for NBA guys.
Yes, I have personally reached the point of acceptance that this is going to last a while, which is why I’m preparing now for a locked down future.
I’m still on board with Dr. Fauci, and he seems to think a vaccine could be a reality by the end of the year or early in 2021. And he doesn’t seem skeptical that there won’t be an effective vaccine. So I’m hanging my hat on that a bit.
But the reality is, in the interim we’re going to be dipping our toes back in the water based on local conditions, and pulling back based on the same.
I do hope that mask wearing in public places is mandatory until there’s a vaccine, regardless of how good the numbers look.
I also choose to have hope in what Fauci says. My motto now, though, is hope for the best and prepare for the worst. I will continue to try and be hopeful, but the plans I make will be based on things getting worse before they get better, if they get better at all depending on other influential factors ahead.
Plus, what worries me about a vaccine is there’s already a massive anti-vax disinformation machine out there. How effective will a vaccine be when it comes out in a year if a large and loud minority of people refuse to get it?
I am no anti-vaxxer by any means, though I’ve not been as consistent as I should be with annual flu vaccinations given my advancing age. I must admit, however, that I’m very skeptical about the vaccines they’re currently developing under the relaxed protocols now in place. I will likely stay hunkered down when the initial vaccine(s) get rolled out until I’m reasonably sure that they are effective and that they don’t produce serious side effects.
Personally, I’d stay away from anything that begins with “Hydroxy” and ends with “chloroquine”.
I’ve said before, but I’m not sure I could trust anything that gets distributed before the end of the calendar year. Especially if it’s Trump branded, or some such nonsense.
Sadly, I don’t know what you can do about the anti-vax crew. If it’s determined by a consensus of independent scientists and people like Dr. Fauci, I think you’ll see a pretty good buy-in.
But there will be a significant number of people who don’t. Really not sure how that turns out.
That’s when you distribute free sandwiches to the public, with secret ingredients.
That’s where I am, too. This is always what flattening the curve was going to look like; loosening restrictions doesn’t mean the virus is gone, it just means there’s room in the hospital. All of the models point to there being alternating periods of tightening and loosening restrictions for a year to 18 months minimum, until a vaccine and/or effective treatment protocol is developed.
Unfortunately, Americans tend to be selfish and/or dumb as shit, and so here we are debating masks and opening everything up at once.
To say nothing of the fact that recent estimates have shown that the economic devastation would basically be the same whether local economies are open or not.
What’s happening now is the result of conscious choices. We don’t have to reopen things so that people don’t starve. Other countries set out wage guarantees and subsidies for the duration of the pandemic, like in Australia where workers get $1500 ASD every two weeks. The virus is a matter of life and death; the economy doesn’t have to be, but that’s what many people think because that there’s socialism!
A lot of Americans are so eager to reopen the economy when they themselves don’t practice what we have to do for a quick re-open. Every time I go out I wear masks and always carry clorox wipes/sanitizers. Too often I see a lot of people walking around not wearing any masks because muh freedom. America as a whole has become selfish. It’s always about me me me and not about other people. There was a day when we all mourned 3000 people who died in a terrible attack. Now 100k people have died and yet people don’t seem to care anymore. Hell, Vegas just opened and now we had an uptick of 2500 new cases the other day. Some of my friends tested positive for using the Wynn pool. If everyone just followed guidelines and if the leader of this nation simply followed the experts, we would be in a different situation right now.
The people and politicians that whined and clamored about reopening the economy will soon realize that the spike in cases because of the reopening is going to cause more closings and shutdowns. Yes, the economy can’t stay shut down forever, but if everyone had just taken the necessary precautions and followed directions during the initial shutdowns, we would be in a much better position. Literally nothing got done during that initial lockdown and now it’s just going to get worse again because the mindset of so many in this country is impatient and selfish.
I haven’t seen too many issues of mask wearing here in the Bay Area, but the fact that wearing a mask and practicing social distancing has even become political pretty much sums up the sad state this country is in. It’s why we’re never going to get out of this pandemic anytime soon; a combination of bad decision makers in charge and selfish people that just don’t care about the well being of others.
God this is so depressing because it’s true. I wear a mask to protect our parents and elderly. Sure it may not affect me as much or maybe it would but I feel for the elderly. They are the most at risk. Just being a decent human being and wearing a mask so we can get through all this a big deal for you? I can’t with these people.
People also forget that the 2nd wave of the Flu of 1918 was the deadliest. I’m envious of New Zealand. They are COVID free. They can see family and friends with no worry. Have parties, eat out, explore. Just back to normal for them. We’re still in a state of worry and now looking at a travel ban due to poor pandemic management/recovery.
I just want everything back to normal. Our basketball. Our lives. I want to be able to take my kids out to the park or to restaurants without worry. But people are making it worse.
Move the NBA Play-ins to New Zealand!
Sadly, they likely don’t want to host Americans at this point.
With the EU about to ban American travelers as they reopen, I don’t think anyone wants to deal with us right now.
Hard to fathom that people won’t listen to those who have expertise in this particular area. This is something new to us in the United States, but it’s not like other countries haven’t dealt with this type of thing in the past – so scientists have some basis for understanding infection/mortality rates, and the effectiveness of mitigation.
Klam is right, if we’d gone hardcore mandating masks/social distancing/shutdowns nationwide at the start, we’d have a pretty firm handle on it now. Instead, we’re seeing these spikes play out as expected.
The government has failed us. We live in an era of fake news. Not to mention, the administration dismantled our Pandemic Response Team to cut costs.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/
And 1 when people will counter that the CDC/Fauci has said that masks don’t work, well they did say that but it’s because we ran out of masks. 80% of all our masks are made in China. Not only that: The ones that we made for us were exported to China and other countries since no executive order was given for a defense production act.
Also we haven’t restocked our mask reserve for years. A decade. Insane.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-coronavirus-masks/
The people who need to read Snopes think Snopes is ‘fake news’.
The reality is that between some of the players (Lebron/Chris Paul and other stars) and the owners/league there is just too much money at stake not to move forward. I would have cancelled the season back in April once it was very clear what we were dealing with but that money is just too important to them. It seems like the belief among a lot of the players is that even they get it, they are world class athletes and they’ll be fine. Obviously that’s a completely myopic way of looking at the situation because there are so many other staff and personnel required to make this whole thing work but I’d guess that’s the prevailing thought. And Patrick Beverly probably had a point when he tweeted, “If Lebron said we hooping, we all hooping.” That’s probably oversimplified to some degree but I bet if Lebron came out tomorrow and said he didn’t want to play, so many players would drop out they’d shut it down.
from what I understand the problem is that the financial impact of not finishing the season is pretty close to a doomsday scenario for the entire league over the long-term. Amick has article out in The Athletic today in which he interviews various GMs regarding their thoughts and reservations about restarting the league. Here’s a couple of quotes I thought were nuanced, yet sobering:
There’s obviously no easy solution. If the league pulls it off, then it’s a triumph. Basically, any other scenario is a complete disaster. At the very least, it feels like the NBA is grappling with the complexity of the issue more than most leagues/states/businesses. They seem to understand variables can change quickly, and aren’t wedded to the idea that they must complete the season at all costs.
Also, I did get a little bit of a chuckle reading the quotes from GMs and knowing with 100% certainty that Vlade was not one of the GMs interviewed anonymously for the article. It must be weird to write one of these and think “well I can’t use Vlade’s quotes because his mannerism are too unique to be kept anonymous”.
I’ll be damned if China is finally getting revenge on Daryl Morey and the Houston Rockets
I haz amusement
It is the 24th .. let’s see what players are going forward with Orlando.
Goddamn you Bratz. How dare you make me read Sam Amick brilliance?
I will repent by only linking to James Ham articles moving forward
This is great! Thanks for posting! I hadn’t read this but yeah this does a pretty good job of explaining all the intricacies of what they are attempting to do.
It’s the really shitty thing about the options here – they all suck (primarily for the economy).
Still, the NBA is choosing it’s existence at the potential expense of their employees’ health – pretty hard to deny that.
Nobody has to go. Those that go are going by choice, meaning that they’re aware of the risk involved and are going anyway. Good for them and good for the people who opted out as well. Those that are want to be there will, those that don’t won’t.
As for the management side of the equation, I personally don’t believe the league or owners would be doing this if they thought there was a good chance that the league and/or individual teams/players could be damaged for years to come by playing. This a business worth billions of dollars a year. Would they really risk making millions now to lose billions down the road? I just don’t believe that level of myopia.
A player could suffer a career ending injury at any point during a season.That’s an accepted part of the deal. These are young, incredibly fit men. If my 60+ year old next door neighbor who is a recent cancer survivor can survive pneumonia and covid simultaneously (he felt like crap for a few weeks then was fine), then the odds are any positive testers will end up just like Mitchell and Gobert did an Jokic will- mild to no symtoms with a full recovery. This isn’t ebola or the bubonic plague. Not even close.
Career ending injuries have been a threat in basketball and sports because that’s part of the game. But this is something new and outside of it, not a normal part of sports, not something that these athletes ever had to deal with before.
That’s great news that your neighbor survived both of those things. There are over 124,000 (and counting) Americans who did not, though. And more who have suffered more than mild symptoms.
Everyone going has accepted the risk, whether it’s the possibility of injury or covid. That’s the whole point. They’re choosing to be there.
And while dying certainly wasn’t a good outcome for those 124k people you mentioned, how many of those were current NBA players? How many of that 124,000 match the physical profile of an NBA player, young and in outstanding phyical shape?
Do you think it is only old people that are dying? I can tell you for certain it is not. Young, healthy people have died. If you think that athletes have nothing to worry about with regards to their health or livelihood, you are mistaken.
Did I say only old people are dying? Older folks, particularly those with existing health issues are by far the largest victims.
NBA athletes are far far less likely to suffer any long term health consequences than other groups of people due to their age and physical shape. Is there zero risk? Of course not because there’s no such thing as zero risk.
Again, they’re choosing to be there, meaning they’re accepting of the risk involved.
Did you miss the articles about how the players will suffer consequences for not playing?
https://nba.nbcsports.com/2020/06/15/report-nba-players-who-choose-not-to-play-will-lose-higher-share-of-salary-than-suspended-players/
You are making the argument that they are choosing to play because they have no problems or concerns about the risk to their health. Are you certain they are not choosing to play because they will lose money if they don’t?
This is a statement you made in your original comment:
You did not say only old people are dying, but you used your one anecdotal piece of evidence for an argument that the players have not much to worry about.
Please show me where I ever said this:
You are making the argument that they are choosing to play because they have no problems or concerns about the risk to their health.
All I ever said was that those going are choosing to go and are accepting the associated risks. I made zero mentions of motivation because I don’t know their individual motivations for going, only that they are choosing to go.
Speaking of motivation, you have zero clue as to the motives of those going and why they are going. Have you spoken to every player going to ascertain their motives? And again, they are accepting the risk to go, for whatever reason. If some are truly concerned about their health and are choosing mammon anyway, then that’s their choice.
As for my neighbor, yes, he’s one man. He’s one man in an age/health group that his been hit hard, with others in similar circumstances dying. Does his surviving with no ill effects mean that no NBA players could die from covid? Of course not. But if he can survive, what odds of living would you give men half his age in peak physical shape?
If a player tests positive, what do you think is the most likely outcome (which doesn’t mean the only outcome) for those players?
You should really stop with the neighbor anecdote. For your one neighbeor, there are thousands who had a terrible outcome from this virus. Your neighbor’s story proves nothing. If there is risk, any risk at all, then it’s a big deal. As has been pointed out by another commenter, there can be lingering effects, even if you survive. What happens to a player if they suffer permanent lung damage? It not only affects their income ability, but their enjoyment of life. It’s ridiculous that you tried to downplay the effects because it’s “not the bubonic plague”.
I made no claims to their motivation, I questioned your statements. Justifying anything with “those that are choosing to go are accepting the associated risk” is pointless. Yes, they are accepting the risks. So do coal miners when they sign up for their jobs. So do lots of people who make decisions against their best interests because they will suffer consequences like financial penalties if they don’t accept the risks.
Banking on “most likely outcomes” is the wrong path to take. Thinking like that is why we’re still in this mess as a country. You take the measures to stop it or slow it down, not take chances because statistically younger people won’t be affected as much. Don’t make people go back to work by penalizing them if they don’t.
It’s getting late and I’m tired. I don’t agree with most of this comment, but I don’t have the energy to keep repeating myself so I’m out. Maybe tomorrow, but I doubt it as I’m not seeing the point in continuing.
You’re sort of denying the fact that this is a contagious disease, when you only talk about individual recovery and not that those infected people are going to share it with many others, including our healthcare and frontline workers.
This infection is significantly worse than ebola. It’s an interesting take to say “well, it’s not as bad as the bubonic plague” as a bar to set.
And congrats to your neighbor, but anecdote isn’t data. What percentage of the U.S. population do you think have already been infected and are (hopefully, but not guaranteed to be) immune from further infection?
We have 120,000 dead currently, with a pretty small percentage having dealt with the disease to this point. You seem to be pretty cavalier with five to ten times more potential mortality.
I’m not denying that it’s contagious at all. The infection rate is…the infection rate. The mortality rate and hospitalization rate are more significant numbers to me.
As for covid vs. ebola, it’s an interesting take to say covid is significantly worse than ebola when the mortality rate for covid is less than 1% and the mortality rate for ebola is 50%. Were you referring to something other than mortality rate? As for the ultimate test, you tell me- would you rather catch covid or ebola? As for bars, I didn’t set any. Ebola and the plague have far worse mortality rates than covid, but based on the hype and fear mongering, you’d think we were dealing with ebola or the plague.
I think the number of people who were or are infected is much higher than people think. I personally have heard of very few cases where people have been infected more than once. Is that possible? I suppose, but again I’ve read of very few cases of this happening and even those weren’t completely clear. As for my neighbor, he is one data point, but he is a data point. As for why I even mentioned him, read above. I’ll make sure to give him your regards.
If reading the actual data out there and filtering out the noise to come to an educated conclusion based on that data makes me cavalier then so be it.
The population of Sacramento county is approximately 1.5 million people. To date, 66 people have died. In 3+ months. The great majority of those are 65+ years old. Zero under the age of 17 have died. There are currently a whopping 50 covid positive persons (which includes 18 icu patients) occupying hospital beds in the county. There are 2,867 licensed hospital beds in the county.
5,632 people in the state have died of covid to this point, according to the Bee. 6,300 died of influenza related deaths during the 17-18 flu season (oct-may). An average flu death year in the state is 6,000. Those numbers come from the CDC, so we’re not talking about Fox/CNN/MSNBC talking points here.
What are those numbers telling you?
Tell me how many people died worldwide from ebola and how many have have died from CV to this point. I’ll wait.
Oh, are you a Fox News scientist?
And please, tell me more about the numbers in California – without talking about the fact that this state locked down early and has been working heavily on mitigation from the start.
Anecdotally, every single employee in my company’s Sacramento office is still working from home, going on four months now. The same is true for our Southern California office. And from the people I talk to, most of their companies are doing the same. Most bars and restaurants and movie theaters, etc. have been shut down as well.
Is that type of thing included in your analysis? Did we do all that mitigation for the flu?
Stop comparing apples and oranges.If you have some tangible scientific source that states we are approaching herd immunity on this, I’d love to see it.
Lol. Textbook Otis. Well, no one can say you aren’t consistent! Never change bro!
History will be the judge of this one, so we’ll see how that goes, won’t we?
Worth it now? Just lost a 1/3 of the roster with positive covid tests…
Badge Legend