Despite being committed to making the trip to Orlando with the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday, Garrett Temple said he knows it will be uncomfortable for players to be in the bubble. Temple said she has “nervous anxiety” about taking the walk.
“There is no way to feel comfortable when you think about where you will be, because of the amount of time you will be there and the restrictions you have there,” Temple said Sunday afternoon. “The issue of us being comfortable; that will not be the case at all.”
“We will have to adapt. We will get tired of it. But by no means, no one will feel comfortable, whether on the court or off the court, during free time or not.”
Temple said he briefly considered not playing in the NBA restart, but ultimately decided that it was important to participate in order to continue earning a salary and raise awareness about social justice and issues of police brutality.
“I think we use the situation that is in the bubble as a way to continue pushing it because there will be a lot of eyes watching these basketball games,” Temple said.
The Nets forward, who is vice president of the NBPA, participated in several of the exclusive player calls in which the players expressed concern about the Orlando restart, as well as calls to the union. Ultimately, Temple said he was not surprised that, even after union officials voted to approve the league’s restart plan, there were still players who were hesitant to go.
“A lot of people have had doubts. I imagine that more than half of the league, of the players who are going, have had doubts,” Temple said. “We have meetings, and sometimes people don’t talk, whether they’re young or boys who just don’t feel like talking in front of a group, so these things happen.”
Temple, whose fiancée, Kara McCullough, is pregnant with her first child, due to be born in mid-September, said she would leave the bubble to attend the birth if the Nets are still playing. The playoffs are slated to start in mid-August, and the Nets are currently the seventh seed in the East. The Nets would have an uphill battle to continue playing in mid-September, when the conference finals are slated to begin.
“I’ll be back to see my first child born,” Temple said. “That is not even in the question.”
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