Michele Roberts, executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, admits there’s no way to fully protect players from COVID-19 while they’re in Orlando, writes Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe. Roberts understands that players are entering a risky situation, but said the only alternative to resuming the season under these conditions was to wait for a vaccine and possibly sit out two years.
“That’s the only realistic mind-set you can have going into this. A player is going to test positive,” she said. “It’s not any more of this ‘if’, it’s ‘when’ and what can I do to mitigate against the ‘when.’ When it happens, if I’m not successful, what treatment is available to me, what are my chances of being really, really sick, and how are you detecting the presence of an infection? Honestly, I don’t think this is any different than what any American has to come to grips with.”
Roberts emphasized that no player is being forced to participate in Orlando and there will be no repercussions other than loss of salary. An increasing number of players are objecting to the restart plan and the restrictive nature of the bubble environment.
“I don’t believe any player would say this was forced upon them, it’s not,” Roberts said. “Not a single player has to play. This is not involuntary servitude. I don’t have to work. They don’t have to work. But it’s of course a mitigation of risk with the players. On this health and safety protocol, I’m satisfied that it can’t be any better than this. But I’m candid that it’s not bulletproof.”
Roberts addresses several other topics in the interview:
Players have become more knowledgeable about the virus:
“At the very beginning when we were being told that this was a disease that people like me [middle-aged] had to worry about, it was more of an annoyance for the players, except for those who had family members my age. But it was not something they thought was going to have this kind of an impact on their lives or their livelihood. As time went on and the seriousness was revealed there were times when players were very concerned about it, especially when it became clear it was not confined to folks over 60. I got really serious questions. ‘Is this something I need to be worried about? Can it kill me? Can it impact my ability to continue to play basketball?'”
She believes most players support resuming the season:
“I think the players are where they want to be. They want to give it a shot and if it doesn’t work, well, we tried. Hopefully nothing catastrophic will happen and we can just figure out Plan B. If the worst would happen and it would spread, we shut it down. This is the virus. I’m going to be disheartened, but I’m not going to be surprised because there’s no scientific or medical ability to protect against it. The players know it. The teams know it. We’re doing absolutely everything we can to mitigate it. If I didn’t think we were, that the league was half-stepping, then I would recommend with every ounce of my being that our players not even think about playing again. But that’s thankfully not the case.”
The union hasn’t endorsed Dec. 1 as the start date for the 2020/21 season:
“Dec. 1 is not an attractive option. Those are tough questions that have to be resolved. How do we address the revenue challenges this virus has created and will create next season? I don’t know when they’re going to have fans back in the arena. I don’t think we’re going to have them in October. There are a number of factors that will impact when the season will begin. I don’t know if we’re going to have a second spike. What’s the virus going to look like? And if you’re going to talk about a compressed season, we were able to reduce the amount of back-to-back games, the notion of returning to that and the obvious injury risk that come along with that, is not attractive. But nothing will happen without the players signing off. That’s for sure.”
Way to be optimistic!
That’s being realistic. It’s going to happen.
If they successfully quarantine the players before they start playing, and continue doing so after play resumes, then there is no reason to think that it should happen. But if someone acts like Rudy Gobert and doesn’t take things seriously, then it probably will.
You’re just thinking about the players. There will be hotel employees that won’t be in the bubble and they won’t be tested rigorously.
I am very worried about it
If 20 players test positive during the playoffs？
There is no reason for a player to test positive. Were talking around 400 people with expanded rosters. If there is an outbreak it proves NBA players are irresponsible and worse at avoiding the virus than everyday people.
Even if a player does get the virus, it’s extraordinarily unlikely that it will result in anything more than an annoying cough.
Despite what the media have told people about the virus, it’s easy to contract it, but very hard to get really sick from hit, and darned near impossible for an athlete under 40 to die from it.
There is a statistically greater chance that a player will randomly collapse and die of a heart attack than one of them will die of the virus.
link to webmd.com
They’re probably more concerned for the older people involved, like certain coaches (Popovich, D’Antoni, etc) who are at higher risk of becoming seriously ill. The players themselves are obviously at much lower risk.
…and so what. Put in isolation and keep playing.
Someone might want to tell her that players have already tested positive
Extremely crazy idea but finish the NBA season in Australia/NZ where they can have crowds and sell tickets and there is little to no covid cases.
This is he best protection for players and best reward for fans
What about the best protection for Australia and NZ? What if a couple of the people involved carry the virus down there? Testing is not 100% accurate. It’s close, but if even 1 or 2 people slip through the cracks, you’ve a new country under pandemic.
Personally, I would rather do without watching pro basketball as opposed to risking 100 million lives. But that’s just me.
NZ and Aus have compulsory 2 weeks self quarantine on entry into the country and have testing. So every player and coach and person would have to self isolate and are aloud to leave isolation after testing negative.
There is already people entering the country now.
There would basically be no chance of them bringing it into the country. It would also be great for all the players and coaches to know they are 1000% healthy and safe with zero risk
I thought the NBA had a better chance then MLB did to resume play this summer. Then Roberts said they should wait 2 years to resume games…insane
Watch it be a Knicks player
(Unless the workers are waltzing in & out), the bubble is as safe as home, more or less, depending on what ‘home’ means. More infections will be caught in the bubble, but that is because there will be more testing.
Wearing goggles and/or headbands would probably block most of the potential transmission. Sweat itself is not especially dangerous, but wiping one’s eye is.
Breathing on each other is x%sure, what are you going to do, have them wear masks too? Better idea, let’s put the players in Hazmat suits.
Personally, I am not freaking out about COVID, trying to live as normal a life as possible. The players though don’t seem to be overly comfortable with the bubble environment. If there are enough players that decide they don’t want to participate, just write the season off and start planning for next season, whenever it may happen.
Personally, nothing goes back to normal until a vaccine exists. If that take until early to mid 2021, then that’s when we’ll see pro sports, concerts, etc. again. They’re playing Soccer in Europe again, will be interesting to see what the next few weeks bring with that.
This nonsense has to end. Eliminating a virus from the country was never the goal or objective. The insane fear mongering needs to stop and the equally foolish scoreboard keeping as well.
Yeah, let’s everyone just bury their heads in the sand and pretend it’s all good. That should do it.
Of course. That’s also true if they don’t play another game as well. Protocols aren’t even intended to completely stop the spread (they are intended to flatten the spread), and it hasn’t (and most people contracting it over the past month or so have been at home). Playing regular season games has other purposes, but most contractions should occur within the first month.