A day after the 2020-21 regular season began, the NBA has postponed its first game. Late on Wednesday afternoon, the NBA announced that the matchup between the Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder, scheduled for 8:00 p.m. ET, had been postponed because there were no eight players available for the Rockets.
This news only underscores the myriad of challenges the league faces as it tries to end its season outside the confines of a bubble at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, within which the NBA ended the 2019-20 season.
As the NFL, MLB, and MLS have shown, trying to make a season out of a bubble comes with all sorts of complications. This is what we and we don’t know about the postponed game, the latest with James Harden and what’s next for the Rockets and the rest of the NBA.
What’s going on in Houston?
The Rockets are addressing two separate coronavirus-related issues, according to reports from ESPN’s Tim MacMahon and Adrian Wojnarowski.
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After a video of Harden without masks and at a club surfaced on social media, the NBA began investigating whether Harden was violating the league’s safety protocols by going to an unapproved indoor event sometime in the past week. The Rockets also had three players return positive or inconclusive tests, and had to add four more players to the league’s tracing program, including former All-Stars DeMarcus Cousins and John Wall, and rookie Kenyon Martin Jr., who was one of the players with conflicting COVID-19 test results. Wall, Cousins, and Martin were among the Rockets players who gathered at a player’s apartment Tuesday night to have their hair cut.
The combination of the two events resulted in fewer than eight players in Houston, which forced the Rockets to postpone the season opener against the Donner.
When is the game against thunder invented?
The league has not announced a date for the replay of the game, but it has added flexibility to its schedule to address this scenario. By releasing the games, which should only be played until March 4th, the NBA has three options for rescheduling: before the March 5-10 hiatus in the mid-season; during this pause; or in the second half of the season, for which the schedule will not be announced until February.
According to ESPN’s Royce Young, the Thunder will fly back to Oklahoma City on Wednesday. They plan to leave Oklahoma City on Friday afternoon to fly to Charlotte to celebrate their season opener on Saturday.
What is the League investigating regarding Harden?
The league has approved specific restaurants in each NBA city for players, coaches, and travel company employees of each team to attend. The protocols prohibit these individuals from going to bars, lounges, or clubs, and from attending social gatherings of more than 15 people. In certain markets like San Francisco and Los Angeles, there are also stricter league mandates that prohibit teams from traveling beyond the hotel or arena.
He was not wearing a mask in the club in pictures of Harden posted on social media. The NBA found Harden unavailable for violating health and safety protocols and fined him $ 50,000.
How does contact tracking work?
The league has deliberately given itself leeway for the topic of contact tracing in order to be able to deal flexibly with each individual situation.
The backbone of the NBA plan is the rigorous testing procedures. Players are now being tested twice a day every day in the hopes that the league will be able to identify all cases of the virus as soon as possible, reducing the need to isolate players or miss out on time.
However, situations like the one reported are more complicated when players gather in an environment outside of a practice or game and there is a case of a positive test. Earlier this month, for example, Utah Jazz Guardian had to quarantine Mike Conley for a week after coming into contact with someone close to his family and outside the league’s testing program.
Mark Mulligan / Houston Chronicle via AP
What are the return-to-play protocols?
For players who have tested positive for COVID-19, there are two possible avenues to return: a time-based resolution and a test-based resolution.
According to the time-based solution, the infected person must have passed at least 10 days since the date of their first positive test or the onset of symptoms, if any. at least 24 hours have passed since her fever went away without medication; and had other symptoms improved. The logs specifically state that loss of taste or smell alone is not intended to prevent someone from leaving isolation.
With test-based resolution, the individual must return at least two consecutive negative PCR tests on samples taken at least 24 hours apart.
In any event, any player found to have a new positive case from the test may not participate in any training for at least 10 days after the positive test date or the resolution of symptoms, if any, for at least 10 days.
Once a player has waited at least 10 days, they must spend two days exercising alone, not interacting with anyone, or participating in team activities, and must do a cardiac screening.
Any player who has had a severe case of COVID-19 or has been hospitalized at any time must be observed for at least three full days before they can be cleared to return to the game.
What are the possible penalties for violating the security protocols?
The NBA has a section in the Health and Safety Logs that outlines discipline and penalties for players and team members.
While no specific penalties are mentioned, the penalties for players who fail to comply with these league rules include possible warnings, fines or suspensions. Teams that fail to comply could also face adjustments or loss of draft picks, as well as loss of the game.
Players who violated logs in the bubble – like LA Clippers’ Lou Williams – and were forced to miss games lost pay for every game they missed. In this case, Harden would withhold $ 284,517 (1/145 of his salary) for failing to provide services for violating protocols.
The gray area of this interpretation is that the Rockets Thunder game was postponed and not canceled. For technical reasons, Harden has not yet missed a game.
Will this affect Harden’s commercial value?
When asked if Harden’s behavior was a red flag when trading with the former MVP, the team’s executives told ESPN they thought it was selfish and reckless but would not prevent a deal.
The teams have already done their homework when it comes to hardening on and off the pitch. An NBA manager told ESPN that the team had hired a private investigator to do a thorough background check, treating the process of gathering information about him like a prospect’s draft.
If a team is eager to acquire Harden, the bigger challenge is putting together enough outbound salaries (at least $ 33 million) to make a trade legal without gutting their existing roster.
The teams are in the early stages of evaluating their rosters and are not currently ready to make a hasty judgment. That could change if the Rockets cut their asking price on Harden, which is currently reported to be a mix of young players with star potential and significant design skills.
ESPN’s Bobby Marks contributed to this report.
