| CREDIT: JESSE D. GARRABRANT/NBAE VIA GETTY
We knew it was inevitable, but everyone was holding onto hope that we could avoid COVID issues in the NBA for as long as we could. Well, the day that COVID has impacted the NBA season finally came last night on January 7th.
Last night, Philadelphia 76ers Guard Seth Curry discovered that he tested positive during the first quarter of their 122-109 loss to the Brooklyn Nets. Curry was notified of the result and immediately removed from the bench and isolated from the rest of the team. He left the arena on his own separate from his teammates.
Curry, is off to a hot start for the Sixers in his first season with the team. He’s averaging a career-high 17 PPG while shooting near 60% on both 3-pointers and from the field. He sat out last night’s game due to ankle soreness.
The rest of the team did not travel back to Philadelphia after the loss. They are currently quarantining in New York as they await a new round of testing and contact tracing.
Sixers star Center Joel Embiid, sat next to Curry on the bench in the first quarter. For the time being, he plans to self-quarantine from his family, including his 3-month-old son.
The Sixers and the visiting Denver Nuggets are scheduled to play Saturday.
Denver has their own COVID-19 issues as well, as young budding star Michael Porter JR. is facing an additional 10-14 day quarantine period after completing a 7-day quarantine due to contact tracing. He was originally scheduled to return last night in their 124-117 overtime loss to the Denver Nuggets. It is unknown what has caused the additional quarantine period for Porter JR.
In other COVID-related NBA news, a minimum 7-day quarantine was placed on the Boston Celtics‘ Tristan Thompson, Grant Williams, and Robert Williams due to contact tracing.
The Celtics are scheduled to play the Washington Wizards tonight at 7:30 in Boston.
The Wizards, who have not had any COVID related issues this season, visited the Sixers on Wednesday night in a 141-136 loss.
Are you following along? There’s a TON of moving parts to all these quarantines, and this is the first time that a player has tested positive DURING a game this season. How will the NBA handle that?
My first question:
WHY are they allowing test results to be discovered DURING a game?
Shouldn’t we be doing everything in our power to find out test results before a game because otherwise, it’s kind of pointless to have the testing available?
Thankfully they were able to isolate Curry immediately and remove him from the arena. However, he was already on the bench with the team into the game sitting next to Embiid, who played 36 minutes in the game.
I commend the NBA because they have been as cautious as any league as you can see with the quarantine measures in place noted above. The Bubble itself was a huge risk but turned into a huge success.
But in my opinion, if you are not able to get test results back before a game starts, we need to:
A) push back the start time until every player has tested negative
B) reschedule the game and play at another time.
We saw the heat that the MLB took when Justin Turner returned to the field to celebrate the Dodgers World Series victory after testing positive during their Game 7 victory. Basketball games have a lot more contact involved than a normal baseball game.
The NBA has exercised as much caution as possible so far and done a great job protecting players and coaches. This is understandably a difficult scenario for the league to navigate. But this seems simple. If a test result is still unknown, the games cannot go on. It puts everyone in the arena in danger otherwise.
We will see how the league reacts to this. They have yet to move a game this year due to COVID results. However, I think we all believed this kind of scenario was inevitable.
It seems very likely that the Nets, Celtics, and Sixers will be unable to play games this weekend due to contact tracing protocols, but the league has yet to make an announcement yet.
Hopefully, Curry and everyone else involved remains safe and healthy going forward. I don’t mean to criticize the NBA. They have been the example to follow on dealing with COVID for the rest of the major sports leagues.
I hope that the league offices will learn from this and be better prepared going forward because it is the first positive test on game day but it surely will not be the last.