When the NBA reported there had been no positive coronavirus tests over the last week, the NBA bubble showed the way COVID-19 could be solved.
Frequent testing. Isolation of those who are sick. Social distancing and mask-wearing in public. An entire community effort.
The money and effort spent on it gave the league its desired results. Oklahoma City Thunder general manager Sam Presti said in a Zoom call with media Wednesday that this set-up was the sum of cooperation between the league, teams and players.
“The bubble doesn’t come about because somebody came up with it in the NBA events team. It comes about because there’s checks and balances that are taking place,” Presti said. “Extreme opinions (are) being modified by the wisdom of a lot of different people’s experiences.”
After the culture shock wore off, there’s been little to no public complaints from players.
Danilo Gallinari said he’s experienced much worse conditions in his international travels as a younger player. Kevin Hervey said the food is nutritional – even if the taste wasn’t something he wanted to comment on. Steven Adams put it most candidly, saying they’re “living in a bloody resort.”
Teams have been able to live and practice as they prepare for scrimmages that start this week and games that start next.
“The NBA’s not only asking for our opinions from the teams, but they’re listening,” Presti said.
[lawrence-related id=434716,434706]
The threat isn’t over. Players are still arriving to the campus, as are employees who interact with the players and work in their environments.
It looks like it’s on the path to be a success, but we’re still months away from truly knowing.
“You don’t know what the future looks like. Everybody’s, I think, been conscientious about trying to follow the protocols and keep themselves safe,” Donovan said. “I think league has done incredible job.”
The future is something that the NBA will have to start considering not too long from now.
If this tournament does work – if the league successfully keeps away the virus, if the NBA can have a champion, if the players all get back home safely – there’s a quick turnaround. The next season is scheduled to start less than two months after the Finals end.
Presti said this environment can’t be used for a full season’s schedule, simply because 30 full teams couldn’t fit in that Disney World bubble.
As they watch the remainder of this season unfold, those in charge of the league and the players union will have to start planning for the next.
“What we’re going to do though I believe is take a lot of the learnings from this experience in Orlando, in all facets, and probably throw them into the future and figure out the most effective way to manage,” Presti said.
With that said, there’s little they can do at this point. What we know about COVID-19 is ever-changing. There’s a good chance case rates will drastically different over the next three months, and there’s no way to know as of now if that will be for the better or worse.
How does the league continue to be proactive in such a situation?
It’s not so much proactivity as it is patience.
“You just can’t plan yourself into a pretzel. We have to wait for things to evolve and see where things are at season’s end and make our future decisions from there,” Presti said. “We don’t know where the, we don’t understand … where the virus will be, we don’t know how this bubble experiment will go. We just know it’s going well to this point but every day is a new day and new situations occur.”
If this Orlando bubble wouldn’t work for an entire 30-team, 82-game season – and beyond the physical space allowances, would NBA players really be OK leaving family and outside life for that entire time? — it would be prudent for the NBA to look at other leagues for guidance.
[lawrence-related id=434772,434680]
The MLB season is set to commence Thursday, and teams will travel to different states to play. The NFL season, if it begins as planned, will have also started by the time the next NBA season starts. There won’t be a bubble around the football teams, either.
The safety of those leagues could play a role in if the NBA is willing to do non-bubble game play.
There are options. Maybe the league could split into two bubbles. Maybe they’d expand on Adam Silver’s idea for a tournament between Thanksgiving and Christmas and have different cup-style tournaments precede the Finals. Maybe there’s been positive progress in coronavirus testing or research that allows the NBA to play a semi-normal season.
It’s too early to know. The NBA must watch their own league and others around the country to figure out what the best option is for the 2020-21 season, which is remarkably close.
“I think we’ve gotta be really careful about making any — in anything we’re doing right now. I couldn’t tell you the future of pretty much anything because so much is reliant on what’s happening with the pandemic and the effect it’s having on people, on the economy, and all the different things that the country’s going through,” Presti said.
“I don’t know what the answer would be to that. I think we probably need to let things unfold and then make the best decisions once we have that information.”
However, looking not toward the future but at the past up until this moment on mid-to-late July weekday, Presti has confidence.
“I think we should have a lot of confidence that as a collection of teams and the league itself, we’ve demonstrated the ability to problem solve at a relatively high level.
[vertical-gallery id=434370]