The NBA has been successful so far in its efforts to keep the coronavirus out of its Walt Disney World campus, but the league continues to take additional precautions as it looks to avoid any sort of outbreak.
Sources tell Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link) that the NBA sent an email to teams on Tuesday asking players and coaches to wear face coverings during Zoom calls now that a small group of media members are attending those sessions in person.
“We want to make sure we are staying within rules of campus and since we’re indoors and they aren’t working out, wearing masks apply here,” the league said in its memo.
Here’s more on the NBA’s restart and what’s happening on the Disney campus:
- ESPN’s Malika Andrews shares a handful of entertaining stories on life on the NBA’s campus and noting that things have been running as smoothly as could be expected so far. “What the league is working to pull off is just f—ing epic,” one executive told ESPN. “I do feel really good about how things are going thus far.”
- The “most looming unknown” in Orlando is how players and coaches will respond from a mental health perspective, according to ESPN’s Baxter Holmes, who observes that every team will be on campus for at least five or six weeks, and at least a couple will be there for three months.
- One coach who spoke to Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports believes that the close-quarters campus setting will result in more recruiting than would typically take place in a postseason, essentially functioning like USA Basketball camps have in the past. “The next super-team will come out of this,” the coach said. “I believe it’s inevitable.”
- Chris Mannix of SI.com and Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports are among the reporters who have written about their unique experiences covering the restart at the Disney campus.
Currently almost through the first quarter in the Clips Magic scrim and I must say.. this is the happiest I’ve been in months.
I have a question. Does anybody know? How playoff seeding will be determined.
Will it be determined by total number of wins or winning percentage? Specifically, significant because the Mavs have played more games than any of the teams currently ahead of them in the standings. A lot more. And it’s pretty easy to imagine a scenario where they end up with the 4th most wins in the west but with a worse winning percentage than several teams with less wins.
It’ll be determined by winning percentage.
Thank you
They have to do it by winning percentage, it would be completely unfair to the teams who played fewer games to do it by total wins.
As far as the mental health perspective I would hope that with this lockdown time this spring and hanging out at home and watching the news, that these players will be just fine and happy that they’re working. Happy with the great careers they have and how blessed they are to be professional athletes. I would think that most certainly will help with the mental health aspect.
There’s been one good thing about the lockdown this spring and stay at home. Just puts everything in perspective and I myself have been reminded how blessed I am with what I have. I’m thinking many NBA players and other staff realize the same thing and they’ll be fine in Orlando in the bubble. At least I hope so. I sure hope no one goes nuts and off the rails.
Technically speaking, it’s not the NBA’s fault that America seems so unable to respond with adequate testing capacity to a biological attack. And people who have to wait a week or two for a test result when they want to know if they can even go home, may not mind that pro athletes get buried in tests, all so that we can see games.
Nevertheless the time has passed to get this in.