With family in Italy, Oklahoma City Thunder forward Danilo Gallinari understands the effects of coronavirus better than most in the NBA.
From what he’s heard from Europe, Gallinari said he would be in favor of playing games without fans in the arena in an effort to prevent the spread of the COVID-19.
“I am in favor because I see everything that has been going on in Europe, not just in Italy,” Gallinari said in a video posted by reporter Michael Kinney.
“The steps that they did was play normal games and then playing without fans and now they’re not playing.”
On Tuesday, all sports in Italy were suspended until April at the earliest, according to ESPN.
The soccer game Wednesday between Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund in France will be played without fans, according to USA TODAY.
In Spain, La Liga announced Tuesday that matches will be played without fans for at least two weeks, according to the Los Angeles Times. Some Champions League games will have the same limitation.
World Cup qualifiers for the Asian Football Confederation were suspended.
Opening Day for Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league has been postponed to mid-April, and the ceremonial passing of the Olympic Torch to the 2020 organizers in Greece scheduled for Thursday will be closed to the public.
“Hopefully we don’t get to that point where we don’t play games anymore, but maybe as a step forward, to play some games with no fans — hopefully doesn’t happen of course, because playing without fans is a huge change for a player, but if something that the league has to do in order to prevent what is going on in Italy … we’ll see,” Gallinari said.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mqYiZAwTWY]
Gallinari said he talks to his family in Italy multiple times per day.
“Life has changed. When you cannot get out of the house, you cannot have any contact with anybody, you can get out of the house only if you have to – for example, going to the grocery store,” he said. “And then not have any contact with anybody. My mom and her brothers not be able to see my grandparents because of the age, they could be the most affected ones, and maybe not be able to handle the virus.
“It’s a weird and tough situation for everybody.”
Gallinari said he’s trying to communicate the seriousness of the virus to his teammates.
“Having that situation in my country, my country even stats-wise being right now the worst country in the world because of the virus, I’m just trying to make sure that all my teammates understand the situation and they behave in the right way in order to prevent ourselves, but also not just for us, also other people that we get in contact with, especially traveling,” he said.
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