LOS ANGELES (AFP) – NBA commissioner Adam Silver reiterated Tuesday that a “significant spread” of coronavirus could burst the league’s safety “bubble” and cause a second shutdown of the season.
Silver said he fully expects some players who gather in Florida to resume the suspended season will test positive for coronavirus, especially as teams first arrive in Orlando from their home markets.
But he said fresh outbreaks after players go through quarantine procedures could prove more damaging.
“Certainly, if we had any sort of a significant spread at all within our campus, we would be shut down again,” Silver said at Fortune’s virtual Brainstorm Health conference.
“It would be concerning if once (the players) sit through our quarantine period, and then were to test positive, we would know that, in essence, there’s a hole in our bubble.”
The NBA halted play on March 11 after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus.
The season is set to resume on July 30 with 22 teams jockeying for a spot in the 16-team playoffs that start August 17.
All games will be held at the ESPN Sports Complex at Walt Disney World in Orlando, where players will stay in a quarantine environment.
Coronavirus testing and contact tracing measures will be in place, which Silver hopes will make the campus safe for players and NBA personnel despite the rise in COVID-19 cases in Florida.
”We can analyze the virus itself and try to track whether, if there’s more than one case, if it’s in essence the same virus, the same genetic variation of the virus that has passed from one player to another,” Silver said.
”This should work,” he said.
”But again, this virus has humbled many, so I am not going to express any higher level of confidence than we are following the protocols and we hope it works as we designed it.”
Nets guard still has virus
In New York, Brooklyn Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie said Tuesday he has again tested positive for COVID-19 and will not compete in the NBA season restart at Orlando, Florida.
Dinwiddie announced last week he had tested positive for the deadly virus, then confirmed in a Twitter posting Tuesday he had again tested positive.
”After another positive test yesterday and considering the symptoms, @BrooklynNets, team doctors and I have decided that it would be in the best interest for me and the team that I do not play in Orlando,” Dinwiddie tweeted. ”I will be supporting the guys every step of the way!”
At 30-34, the Nets are trying to secure one of the final two Eastern Conference playoff spots. They are just ahead of Orlando (30-35) with Washington (24-40) a longshot to knock either out of a playoff spot.
The NBA season was shut down on March 11 after Utah’s Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19. Tuesday is the deadline to finalize lineups to begin training camps ahead of a July 30 resumption of play, each club playing eight games to complete the season.
