While the Covid-19 reaches new heights in the United States with nearly 3,000 deaths per day, the NBA is staying the course for the recovery, multiplying the announcements concerning the rules that will frame this new exercise.
Last week, the league sent out a 154-page memo of sanitary tips and measures to follow, supplemented over the days by discussions it has with owners, players and coaches.
ESPN announces for example that the latter voted the possibility of continuing to wear casual outfits during matches, as in the bubble. Only jogging is prohibited, while wearing a mask will be compulsory for the duration of the meetings, with a minimal tolerance for lowering it.
Also for coaches, the choice of whether or not to participate in this season will be theirs, a change from the bubble, where the NBA wanted to be able to prevent people at risk from joining Orlando, according to a battery of tests but also to age necessarily, which some had felt as discrimination.
However, the risks of contamination are much higher than this summer with a season that will be played out under almost normal conditions in terms of travel.
In order to better control the spread of the virus, the 45 people authorized to travel by team will be tested twice a day, with two PCR tests, one of which the result is known in 24 hours, the other in 30 minutes.
As a reminder, 48 of the 546 tests carried out on the players during the last week of November, in anticipation of the training camps, came back positive. The Knicks and Blazers had to shut down their training facility temporarily because of this, and the season is to be expected to be punctuated by the new positive cases.
“All the measurements give us the impression that we have taken the right precautions to be as safe as possible. That being said, we know that there are a lot of variables in this season, that we will have to be flexible and able to change course quickly ” sums up Rick Carlisle, boss of the coaches union.
