26
The San Juan Daily Star
Thursday, June 18, 2020
Swabs and sensors: Memos offer details of life in NBA ‘bubble’ By MARC STEIN
W
hen NBA teams arrive at the Walt Disney World Resort next month for the resumption of the 2019-20 season, every player and team staff member will be expected to stay on the campus at nearly all times. Confirmation of that rule was among the standout disclosures that teams and players received earlier this week in the most detailed look yet at what life will look like at the complex in Florida. Two memorandums — one from the league office to teams, and the other from the players union to agents — highlighted many of the key guidelines and restrictions that the league will enforce. A complete, 113-page guidebook of health and safety protocols that the league and the players union are expected to formally sign off on this week was also sent to teams Tuesday night. To try to reduce the risk of exposure to the coronavirus from the surrounding community, any player or staff member who leaves the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex near Orlando, Fla., without approval and wishes to return will face a quarantine period of “up to 10 or more days,” according a league memo viewed by The New York Times. Delegations capped at 35 people per team for the 22 clubs that have been invited to the NBA’s planned restart will thus be largely limited to shuttling back and forth among their assigned team hotels, seven practice facilities and the three arenas used for games at the complex. A 33-page player handbook sent to teams Tuesday also included many details about an array of entertainment options, recreational activities and personal services that will be provided to try to ease the rigors of a grind that is scheduled to last three months for the two teams that reach the NBA Finals. The union memo, also viewed by The Times, referenced the imminent completion of the 113-page document as a “robust health and safety manual” that has been the subject of negotiations involving officials from the NBA, Disney and the players union, with input from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and various health officials and medical experts. Players and team staffers will be required to register two negative coronavirus tests when they arrive with their teams July 7 to 9 and will quarantine in their
Family and friends will not be allowed into the N.B.A.’s isolated environs at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex near Orlando, Fla., until the second round of the playoffs. hotel rooms for 36 to 48 hours. With no family members or friends allowed into the bubble until the second round of the playoffs, players on teams that advance that far will have to brace for more than 50 days in the tightly controlled environment before having any in-person contact with individuals from the outside world. The distribution of both memos was first reported by The Athletic. Among the most notable disclosures: — Players who elect not to play in the restart — because of safety concerns, reservations about NBA bubble life or a reluctance to return to work in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement that has attracted passionate participation from many key figures around the league — have until June 24 to notify their teams. Players would not be sanctioned in such cases but would have to surrender up to 14 games worth of salary. — The Toronto Raptors, the NBA’s defending champions, are scheduled to begin using Florida Gulf Coast University in Naples, Fla. as their practice facility later this month because of government travel restrictions that mandate a 14-day qua-
rantine for people entering Canada. (Some Raptors players are currently in the United States, making it easier for the team to congregate in Florida than in Toronto.) — Players will be asked to wear an optional “proximity alarm” that would notify the player if he spends more than five seconds within 6 feet of another person wearing an alarm. The device will only be mandatory for team and league staff members, according to the union memo, which also states that players will be given the option of wearing “an Oura smart ring” that tracks temperature, respiratory and heart rate and other health measures, and may help with coronavirus protection. — Six feet of social distancing is encouraged at all times, entering another guest’s hotel room is forbidden, and face coverings will be mandatory for everyone on campus, according to the union memo, except when eating, in individual rooms or while engaged in a physical activity outdoors. — Random anti-drug testing will resume July 7 but only for performance-enhancing drugs and diuretics. Although no testing would be done for recreational sub-
stances, the union memo noted that players remain subject to discipline for possession or use of prohibited recreational substances including marijuana, which is not legal in Florida for recreational use. — Both the league and the union said frequent coronavirus testing would be done with a shallow nasal swab and a mouth swab (known as a COVID-19 PCR test) and a blood draw (serology/antibody test). The union said that the more invasive full nasal swab (nasopharyngeal) widely known to cause discomfort will not be used — except as a re-entry measure for those who leave the campus without prior approval. — Hotel assignments will be based on the standings when the season was paused, with the top four seeds in each conference (Milwaukee, Toronto, Boston, Miami, Denver, Utah and both Los Angeles teams — the Lakers and the Clippers) bound for the Gran Destino luxury tower, which opened in 2019. The bubble experience “may not be for everyone,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Monday night on ESPN. “It will entail enormous sacrifice on behalf of those players and for everyone involved.”