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Utah Jazz: No positive results on COVID-19 since mandatory testing began, says Dennis Lindsey

SALT LAKE CITY – Utah Jazz have officially arrived at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, where the NBA has formed a “bubble” to complete the rest of the 2019-2020 season.

Jazz arrived Tuesday evening and Wednesday executive vice president of basketball operations Dennis Lindsey and general manager Justin Zanik approached the media via Zoom.

Of extreme urgency, Lindsey said that none of the team has given positive results for the new coronavirus since the NBA has forced regular tests to begin in late June. Jazz, of course, was the first team in North America to have a positive test for players in March, as Rudy Gobert did on March 11th, which led to the league’s suspension.

“Our healthcare performance team and coaches have really done very well,” Lindsey said of the past few weeks as players have been able to go to the training facility for optional workouts. “We have created a safe environment, so to date as we know it, we have never had positive COVID-19 tests.”

Zanik, who traveled to Orlando while Lindsey stayed in Salt Lake (the teams had to cut their traveling parts from the usual 55-60 for the street games to 35), said that the strangest part of the trip was actually getting on the plane since he hadn’t done it for four months, even though it was the team’s usual card and took his usual place.

Upon landing in Orlando, Zanik said there were two buses on the Disney cruise line that the team boarded on the 25-minute journey from the airport to the hotel which will be home for the next few months.

“Some of the kids were wondering where their Mickey Mouse ears were,” said Zanik. “We didn’t take them off the bus.”

The team had a police escort in his hotel (The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported that the Jazz stayed at the Gran Destino hotel within the resort. According to Charania, hotel assignments were made based on the team’s record) , and upon arrival, a room was inaugurated in which league deputy commissioner Mark Tatum, security chief Jerome Pickett and some others gave a presentation of about 15 minutes.

Immediately after the presentation, the traveling party was tested for COVID-19, with results still unknown as of Wednesday at 14:00 Mountain Time.

Zanik said that each member of the traveling party was given a Disney bracelet that will act as a room key and a bright green bracelet indicating that they are in quarantine. Everyone will remain in quarantine until the results of a second coronavirus test that will be administered on Wednesday evening will return on Thursday.

Since they are all in quarantine, the technicians will go to individual rooms on Wednesday evening to administer the tests, Zanik said, and meals will be delivered to the rooms until everyone is out of quarantine.

The meal topic drew attention to social media on Tuesday evening after the Denver Nuggets guard posted his widespread dinner on his Instagram story, with many commenting that it seemed to be missing.

New York Times NBA reporter Marc Stein tweeted Tuesday evening that “The food in the NBA bubble changes after the quarantines have been completed. Players’ meals don’t look like airline trays after the first 48 hours … “

Apparently that was new to the All-Star Man Donovan Mitchell, who replied to Stein asking, “How do you know?” And added two emojis who cried with laughter.

Stein replied tweeting: “It should become more of a real hotel experience – in the three team hotels – once you are no longer stuck in quarantine in your rooms.”

On Wednesday, Zanik said: “I will say in general, the NBA has done an excellent job on logistics … the logistics, they performed very, very well last night and continuing today.”

Zanik beat him saying, “If you want reviews of hotels, restaurants or the look of Disney, I have no idea,” but added, “The rooms are nice. They are well appointed. It is also a fairly new hotel. So far, so good.”

As for basketball, the NBA announced on Wednesday that Jazz is scheduled to hold its first test on Thursday at 3:00 p.m. MT. Teams are scheduled to practice in three-hour blocks.

Ever since discussions became serious about whether the league would return to Orlando, many speculated that the quality of basketball was poor at first, given the long layoff that everyone has had. Zanik said the next three weeks of training camp will be crucial to improve the product on the field during the “seeding games” before the start of the playoffs.

“These three weeks are going to be really important in terms of developing team bonding,” he said. “I think the conditioning is at the best possible level as far as restrictions are concerned. The eight seeding games may not talk about what you would think with March or April basketball with teams at a higher and higher level. I think that’s why we have these eight games, it’s getting ready to prepare for the intensity of the playoffs. “

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