The NBA has postponed 17 total games this season. Six of those postponements were Wizards games.
No team has been impacted more by COVID-19 so far in this young NBA season. The Wizards haven’t played a single game since January 11 when they beat the Phoenix Suns.
That’s why it made perfect sense for the NBA to postpone their game against the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday.
Yes, the Wizards had the eight players available to play in the game. But they literally just had their first practice in nine days with only eight players. They hadn’t touched a basketball in a week and change. They were in no condition to play a game against anyone with six players still out behind the league’s COVID-19 protocols.
Bradley Beal, who is the team’s NBAPA rep, actively voiced his concerns about playing after such a long layoff.
Bradley Beal on playing after missing so much practice time: "That's a recipe for injury, honestly."
He indicated the Wizards are hoping Friday's game will be postponed. He's the Wizards' NBAPA rep & plans to continue advocating for a postponement, along with Russell Westbrook.
— Chase Hughes (@ChaseHughesNBCS) January 21, 2021
So it’s good that the game is postponed. But, even with that postponement being the right thing to do, the Wizards aren’t out of the woods yet.
The league is going to have them make up these games in the second half of the schedule later in the year. And that presents another potentially disastrous scenario for them.
They could potentially play 41 games in 67 days during the second half of the season, per the AP’s Tim Reynolds.
If the Wizards play all 72 games, and if the NBA doesn't schedule any makeups over that bye week, Washington will have to play 41 times in 67 days during the second half of the season.
— Tim Reynolds (@ByTimReynolds) January 21, 2021
This is a potentially disastrous scenario. And it’s not just one for the Wizards — it could impact any team that has the same struggle with COVID-19 the Wizards did. Playing that many times in a little over a two-month window raises injury risks for players in an already condensed season.
There are solutions here. Maybe the NBA has the Wizards and other teams with postponed games play during the All-Star break bye week. Maybe they move the start of the playoffs in the second half of the season to give teams more room to play games that need to be made up.
Maybe they just don’t play these games at all. ESPN reported that the league would have teams play postponed games in the second half of the schedule that “can reasonably be added.” Playing in some of these games might not be reasonable.
“The league won’t release the schedule for the Second Half until later in the First Half. That will include the rest of each team’s 72 regular-season games that weren’t previously scheduled, as well as any games that were postponed in the First Half of the season that “can reasonably be added” to the rest of the schedule.”
It’s still just the beginning of the season. The Wizards are the first team, but they’re not the only team that this can happen to.
The NBA needs to figure out what they’re going to do with them and they need to do it quickly. Otherwise, they could be putting their players’ bodies and health at risk. This is a disaster waiting to happen.
[jwplayer sleHbrCL-q2aasYxh]