Yahoo Autos NBA's empty attempt at updating COVID-19 protocols ignores the most pertinent problem
The 2020-21 NBA season, without the protection of a bubble, has been an experiment in the consequences and limits of a controlled movement. On Tuesday, the NBA and NBPA agreed to updated COVID-19 protocols after an increase of cases and postponed games following the holidays. The terms had only been redefined for hours before Oklahoma City Thunder guard George Hill pushed back.
"I'm a grown man. I'm gonna do what I want to do. If I want to go see my family, I'm going to go see my family," Hill said after a loss to the San Antonio Spurs. "They can't tell me I have to stay in a room 24/7. If it's that serious, then maybe we shouldn't be playing. But it's life, no one's going to be able to just cancel their whole life for this game."
The NBA’s additional health and safety protocols
Players may no longer have non-team guests in hotel rooms
Teams may no longer leave hotels for non-team related activities
Players must wear masks in locker rooms and on the bench
At home, teams must stay in their homes outside of essential activities and emergencies
Physical therapy treatments must be conducted in open spaces with 12 feet between each individual station
The pregame locker room meeting cannot exceed 10 minutes
On team airplanes, players must be seated in accordance of who they were sitting near on the bench
Opposing teams can’t come into contact or mingle after the buzzer
The last two rules try to legislate behavior the unconscious mind falls into even when the conscious mind urges it not to — infractions we’re all attuned to. As we’ve adjusted to new rules, we’ve become familiar with the distance between how we move and how we wish we moved. Arms reflexively rise to shake hands. Masks slip under noses. They get peeled off, seemingly automatically, by coaches who want to be heard — and they want to be heard. You may be able to stop players from fist-bumping in front of cameras, but can you stop them from jerking up and grabbing their teammates after dunks and bad calls? I have my questions, and it’s hardly the most important one.
One rule that didn’t change: the NBA’s contact tracing policy.
After Boston Celtics wing Jayson Tatum entered the league’s health and safety protocol, Washington Wizards guard Bradley Beal was pulled out of a game prior to tip-off because he guarded Tatum and spoke with him afterward.
Not sidelined due to contact tracing? Teammates who interacted with Beal and also guarded Tatum at times. Confusion also arose when Memphis Grizzlies center Jonas Valanciunas was pulled in the middle of a game but his matchup, Nets center Jarrett Allen, was not.
The NBA justifies this, according to The Athletic, by using “Second Spectrum player tracking data to establish that players, on average, spend no more than five or six minutes within six feet of another player during any given game.” This is the flimsy needle the NBA threads to thrust forward with the banality of a machine.
I wonder if anyone really believes this, or if they just know there aren’t enough degrees of separation in the NBA for contact tracing to be both earnest and prevent rosters from crumbling beyond utility.
The season was always going to be touch-and-go, but this omission gets to the heart of why today’s rules won’t move the needle: They’re an empty attempt at refinement that ignores the most pertinent problem.
“We wanna play the game. That’s what we love to do,” added Hill. “At the same time, maybe we should reevaluate what we are doing. I just don’t understand some of these rules. We can sweat next to guys for 48 minutes but can’t talk to them afterwards? It makes no sense.”
Is it safe to play NBA games indoors?
Here’s what Timothy Brewer, professor of epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, said about basketball’s potential to transmit the virus when I spoke with him last May:
