Speaking to reporters on Wednesday for the first time since entering the NBA’s Walt Disney World campus, Suns guard Ricky Rubio acknowledged that his delayed arrival was a result of testing positive for the coronavirus, according to Andrew Lopez of ESPN. As Lopez writes, Rubio said he’ll have to be careful about ramping back up to game speed after not just enduring a four-month hiatus but dealing with the virus as well.
“I’m good. I don’t have symptoms,” Rubio said. “Now that I’m back playing, after being out for three or four months, your legs feel it, your lungs feel it. That’s something I have to work on and figure out how to give my best to the team and focus on my health too.”
As Lopez relays, Rubio didn’t say when he first tested positive for COVID-19, but admitted that it was hard on him to have his family back in Spain while he dealt with the virus in Phoenix.
Here’s more from around the Pacific:
- Suns officials said this week that the team’s new $45MM practice facility is on track to be completed by late August or early September, per Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic. The team had to use its old arena, the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, for individual workouts in the weeks leading up to the trip to Orlando as construction progressed on the new facility.
- Kings center Richaun Holmes, who was subjected to a 10-day quarantine period at Walt Disney World after inadvertently crossing the campus line, explained his mistake to reporters on Wednesday. “Ordered some wings and went to grab the wings, but I really wasn’t too aware of the borders,” Holmes said, according to Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee. “I kind of knew what was going on, but the specific area I was in, I wasn’t aware. So, yeah, I stepped out and grabbed the food and came back, and they just let me know they wanted to be as safe as possible. They had to enforce the rules and I completely understand that, so I won’t make that mistake again.”
- Despite an injury-plagued sophomore season for Marvin Bagley III, the Kings‘ support for the former No. 2 overall pick hasn’t wavered, Anderson writes in a separate Sacramento Bee story. “We know what kind of player he’s going to be,” head coach Luke Walton said of Bagley, who is out for the season with a foot injury. “He’s going to have a great career. And we’ve got to keep him healthy and he’s got to continue to work, which he’s proven to do since I’ve been here as far as every time that he’s gotten injured. So it’s going to be a big offseason, but I’m confident that he’ll attack that with everything he has.”
- In case you missed it, we rounded up a series of updates on all five Pacific teams on Wednesday, and earlier today passed along word that Lakers forward Markieff Morris has cleared quarantine at the NBA’s Orlando campus.
Bagley did not look like a guy who would have regular big-man’s weak foot/ankle… seemed like the athletic type, just at 6-11.
A lot of players that size have those types of issues, too many to mention. Just another reason for more small ball across the NBA.
You mean more boring HOU/GSW small ball! Yikes!!!