25 June2020
Safe and responsible plan for NBA comeback
The NBA’s is growing concern of restarting the NBA season in Orlando, where coronavirus cases have been spiking.
All remaining games will be played in a “bubble” concept at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, with players, coaches and staff working under strict health and safety protocols to minimize the risk from COVID-19. The league, the players association, public health specialists and government officials worked on the program to resume. The version to be played out at Disney: Twenty-two teams competing first through a schedule of eight “seeding games,” a possible play-in layer for No. 8 and No. 9 seeds, followed by the traditional NBA playoff bracket of four rounds of best-of-seven series, allowing for a 2020 champion to be crowned.
No fans will be in attendance for the games, and participants’ families and friends will be permitted into the “bubble” only after the playoffs’ first round. They, too, will be headquartered and held to the same precautions as the players and coaches. All will undergo coronavirus testing daily, at least initially, Silver said. “If we have a single player test positive, whether an All-Star or a journeyman, that player would go into quarantine,” Silver said. Then medical personnel would track others with whom that player had contact.
It’s a complicated, precarious, exhilarating, fascinating and unprecedented journey on which the NBA officially has embarked. Bumps along the way are all but guaranteed, but the time, cost and effort invested so far -- and what the league considers its prospects for success -- makes the departure worthwhile.
“We believe we’ve developed a safe and responsible plan to restart the season,” Silver said. “We ultimately believe it will be safer on our campus than outside of it. But this is definitely not business as usual.”
Source : NBA.com
