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Tim BontempsESPN
As the NBA prepares to officially restart its season in its bubble inside the Walt Disney World Resort on Thursday, and other sports, especially Major League Baseball, struggle to deal with the current coronavirus pandemic, the Association’s executive director said. National Basketball Players, Michele Roberts. Returning to a bubble might be the only feasible way for the NBA to complete next season as well.
“If tomorrow looks like today, I don’t know how we say we can do it differently,” Roberts told ESPN in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon. “If tomorrow seems like today, and today we all recognize her, and this is not talking about Michele, this is the league, along with the Palestinian Authority and our respective experts saying: ‘This is the way to do it’, then that.
Roberts is in the NBA bubble when the league completed its last day of scrimmages on Tuesday and was on the verge of kicking off its resumption of the season at 6:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, when the New Orleans Pelicans face the Utah Jazz. So far, the NBA has gone three weeks without a positive test within the bubble, and only two positive tests at all, both when the players arrived on campus, thus preventing COVID-19 from penetrating it.
MLB, on the other hand, is trying to play its season with teams that travel from city to city and play in their home stadiums, albeit without fans. After an outbreak within the Miami Marlins, they’ve had 17 members of the team’s travel party who tested positive for the virus, causing the team’s games for the rest of this week to be postponed, along with games between the Philadelphia Phillies, Miami’s last opponent. – and the New York Yankees, it is clear how difficult it will be to try to play sports outside of a closed and sterile environment.
“I am not in the Trump camp believing that everything will disappear in two weeks, but I pray, I pray that there is a different set of circumstances that allow us to play in a different way,” Roberts said. “But because I don’t know, all I know is what I know now. So it could be that, if the bubble is the way to play, then that will be the way we play next season, if things continue as they are They are.
“I hope not. Because I would like to think that people can live with their families. But I can only comment on what I know, and what I know is now.”
When the NBA announced its schedule to resume the 2019-20 season, it set a target date of December 1 to start the 2020-21 campaign.
What Roberts knows now is that, at least so far, the bubble is working. And, after expressing to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne in May that she was concerned that a bubble might make players feel like they were incarcerated, Roberts said she is quite satisfied with the conditions on the ground.
“I was concerned that it looked too much like an armed camp,” said Roberts. “I really was. I said, ‘Look. You can’t put people in jail. Even if it’s a nice prison, if it’s a prison, it’s still a prison.'”
“But having arrived here, surely there are some things [that you have to do] – Having to take the temperature and tests. But it couldn’t be easier. To comply with health and safety protocols, I obviously have to wear a mask and all that, but the affirmative things you have to do are really simple, and the facilities where players can play and train are absolutely consistent with the quality they need. have and are used to using. At campus medical facilities and doctors, I am not concerned that someone becomes ill and cannot receive immediate medical attention. So no, I am completely satisfied that I found the correct protocol.
“Nothing is perfect, I touch wood every day and cross my fingers every day so that no one has been infected since we have been here. But this is clear, we have gone through the way of playing. And the players are largely great with that “.
Meanwhile, the league and union have also begun preparing for negotiations on how to deal with what is sure to be a sharp drop in revenue next season due to the ongoing pandemic, making it difficult to play a full schedule. And, most importantly, he plays in front of the paying fans. In a call with the players in May, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said the money generated from attending the live game could represent up to 40% of the league’s annual revenue.
Roberts said the two sides are “starting some very high-level discussions regarding what the potential problems are,” and said the laborious process that was necessary for the NBA and union to figure out how to arm the bubble, and then in It actually goes through the process of doing it, “it took almost all the oxygen out of the room.”
However, one thing Roberts said she was sure of was that when the two sides sit down and talk about how to handle the likely drop in revenue for the upcoming season, there will be no discussion of a full renegotiation of the union’s collective bargaining. league. agreement. While either party may choose not to participate in the current agreement before December 15, 2022, Roberts said that is not their concern at this time.
“I prefer that we take care of the only things that we have to deal with, and that is dealing with what will presumably be a reduction in income of some consequence,” he said. “So no, the notion of accelerating a CBA renegotiation, no. That is not something that has been addressed and, dare I say it, it is not going to happen.”
“We will do what we have to do and nothing else, and then we will move on.”
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