Amick’s Latest: Restart Concerns, Guests In Orlando, More

The Clippers have been the most vocal of the teams pushing the NBA to allow family and friends to be allowed in the Orlando bubble earlier in the summer, according to Sam Amick of The Athletic. Currently, the league doesn’t plan to allow any guests to join players until after the first round of the postseason. Amick says the Clippers hope that rule will be tweaked to allow a player to bring in at least one guest at the start of the playoffs.

“They’re fighting for that,” a rival general manager told Amick.

According to Amick, some GMs and others around the league have wondered if the NBA would consider reducing the number of teams invited to Orlando from 22 to 16. Doing so would provide more room for family members or friends to join players sooner, and would mitigate concerns about long-shot playoff contenders like the Wizards and Suns possibly treating seeding games like a de facto Summer League. However, it’s not under consideration at the moment, says Amick.

As Amick writes, players aren’t the only ones who have expressed disappointment about the limitations on family members and friends being allowed at the Orlando campus. A source tells The Athletic that Celtics head coach Brad Stevens has pushed the NBA to reconsider its ruling that families of staff members won’t be allowed at Disney at all.

Here’s more from Amick’s latest piece for The Athletic:

• A number of general managers who spoke to Amick praised the work the NBA has done to ensure a safe environment at Walt Disney World, suggesting that players and staffers will be better off at the Orlando campus than in teams’ home markets. “I think the precautions the NBA is taking to enhance the safety of the bubble participants are nothing short of extraordinary,” one GM said. “… Once (everyone is) on campus, I think (people within the league) will appreciate the NBA’s work on this.”
• Not every GM is fully on board with the plan, however, with some expressing reservations to Amick. Asked how he felt about the experience to come, one offered the following assessment: “Uncomfortable — how can anyone not be? A lot of uncertainty. I know all the proper measures are being taken but (there) is still a lot (of) unknown. You know and I know why we are playing — for the money. If not that, do you really think we would be playing? I get it, and I’m in…but with hesitation.”
• The fact that Walt Disney World staffers will be traveling in and out of the campus environment is a major point of concern for a number of general managers who spoke to Amick. “It is, by definition, no longer a bubble, and so even the illusion of a safer environment is gone,” one said. “With each case that rises in Orlando, the smart players with families are like, ‘Why the f— are we going there again?” another said.
• There’s a sense that the NBA has to try to make it work because the league would risk creating major financial problems for the league for years to come if this season can’t be completed, writes Amick. “The financial stuff that’s coming in is so heavy, and I think everybody has to share in that responsibility,” one GM told The Athletic. “If you don’t at least try and see how this goes … the NBA could be impacted easily in the next five to 10 years in a way that it’d be very similar to what your industry is going through as well. There’s just going to be mass layoffs, and it could really change.”