Despite pledging to travel to Orlando with the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday, Garrett Temple said he knows it will be inconvenient for players to be in the bubble. Temple said he had “nervous anxiety” for trekking.
“There is no way to feel comfortable when you think about where you will be going, for the amount of time you are going to be there and the restrictions you have there,” Temple said Sunday afternoon. “The question is that we feel comfortable; it won’t be.”
“We’ll have to adapt. We’ll get tired of this. But in no way, the shape or form will actually be someone at ease, both on and off the pitch, whether at leisure or not.”
Temple said he briefly considered not playing the NBA reboot, but ultimately decided it was important to participate in order to continue earning a paycheck and raising awareness of social justice and police brutality issues.
“I think we are using the situation in the bubble as a way to keep pushing it because there will be so many eyes watching these basketball games,” said Temple.
The Nets striker, who is vice president of the NBPA, participated in several player-only calls where players expressed concern about Orlando’s restart, as well as calls to the union. Eventually, Temple said he was not surprised that even after union representatives voted to move forward with the league’s restart plan approval, there were still players hesitant to go.
“Many people have had second thoughts. I guess more than half of the league, of the players who are going, have had second thoughts,” said Temple. “We have meetings, and sometimes people don’t talk, whether it’s kids or guys who don’t want to talk in front of a group, so these things happen.”
Temple – whose fiancée Kara McCullough is pregnant with their first child, expected to arrive mid-September – said he would leave the bubble to participate in the birth if the nets were still playing. The playoffs are expected to begin in mid-August and the nets are currently the seventh seed in the East. The nets would have had an uphill battle to continue playing in mid-September when the conference final is scheduled to begin.
“I’m coming back to see my first child born,” said Temple. “It’s not even in the question.”
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