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Faced with a rain of contamination among players and staff members, American basketball improvises exceptional measures, including recruitments to replace positive cases, in order to minimize postponements which threaten the proper performance of the calendar.
A massacre. Until mid-December, the NBA season quietly followed its course, barely disturbed by a few positive cases and anti-Covid protocols. But like other North American professional sports leagues (NFL, NHL), the most prestigious basketball championship in the world is suddenly overtaken by the epidemic rebound.
On Sunday, five meetings had to be hastily postponed. Three were to take place the same day (Atlanta-Cleveland, Brooklyn-Denver and Philadelphia-New Orleans), as well as Toronto-Orlando, scheduled for Monday, and Brooklyn-Washington, Tuesday. The Brooklyn Nets – who are among the favorites for the title – are particularly decimated, with ten players in isolation, including the triplet of stars Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving.
The last city, unvaccinated, had just returned to the group after missing the very start of the championship. At the dawn of the season, the franchise had decided by mutual agreement between players and staff to dismiss the leader, banned from playing the matches at home due to the legislation in force in New York State, preventing unvaccinated adults to take part in training or games. The Nets are now considering making him argue “The matches and training in which he is eligible to participate” (those outside, therefore), without specifying whether this turnaround was due to the cascade of current packages, or if it was a pure decision …