NBA players, coaches, and team personnel aren’t the only ones dealing with the league’s new coronavirus protocols this season. As Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press writes, referees will be tested daily and will have to comply with new league rules related to indoor gatherings.
The NBA is also looking to reduce referees’ travel, Reynolds adds. While the league usually makes an effort to avoid having the same referee(s) work a particular team’s games more than once every few weeks, that may not be the case in 2020/21.
“Obviously, we won’t be able to eliminate all travel,” NBA VP Monty McCutchen said. “As much as we would like to, that won’t be possible. But just like the league took into consideration many scheduling issues for the teams to significantly reduce travel, we’re going to look at as many possibilities on a one-year basis to reduce travel so we can effectively serve the game while still living in this pandemic.”
Here are a few more updates related to COVID-19:
- The league office is working on establishing a policy for the use of coronavirus vaccines around the NBA, according to Brian Windhorst of ESPN, who says the league wants to make sure its players are educated about vaccine choices, possible side effects, and efficacy. Timing will also be an important issue — the league is also wary of the perception of “jumping the line” ahead of higher-risk segments of the population, and recognizes that competitive balance concerns could arise if certain teams and players are vaccinated before others.
- In an interesting story for Yahoo Sports, Vincent Goodwill takes a look at how coaches around the NBA are preparing to work around the coronavirus this season and how they’ll try to ensure their players are all following the league’s protocols. “You try to put the fear of God into them,” one coach told Goodwill.
- Newly-added Rockets wing Sterling Brown had yet to practice with the team as of Wednesday due to COVID-19 protocols, head coach Stephen Silas said (Twitter link via Tim MacMahon of ESPN). Due to the delay, I wouldn’t expect Brown to be ready to go when Houston tips off its preseason schedule on Friday night.
If David Nwaba is ready to play regular minutes when the season starts, Sterling Brown may have a hard time cracking the rotation in Houston.
Milwaukee did a good job of getting rid of both Brown and George Hill. No more sociopolitical theatrics distracting them two steps from a title. Of course if the Bucks had been allowed their original one-game singular protest before it caught leaguewide like a California wildfire, there would have been less disruption on the way to a comparitively mundane NBA title for the Midwest.
So Sterling Brown being assaulted by the notorious Milwaukee police because of the way he parked at a Walgreens at 2AM (in a nearly empty parking lot), and then refusing to take his hands out of his pockets after being order to by the second officer who showed up some time later is socio-political theatrics, and the Bucks are “getting rid of him” because this made him a distraction to their title hopes? No wonder, I understand now.
That fiasco, however described, kept getting dragged out, and was even amplified in the bubble, where sadness and anger became an option for everyone. The involvement of Brown, Hill, and the Bucks’ owner sons’ made it the Bucks norm. No way to win, and they quite did not, possibly the worst team slippage in the bubble. Then the Bogans fail, and the Jrue overpay, and after wondering for years why nobody offered much to Augustin, a 3/$21 to age 36?