The bubble burst early. Or better: it probably won’t swell at all. “This is not a bubble,” said a member of the NBA executive level at least recently, according to “NBC Sports”. “This is a net hat.” And that meant the quarantine project in Florida, which the most pompous basketball league in the world has been trying for weeks to come back to after a four-month break from corona sleep.
Full isolation in a protective bladder is unlikely to be there. The epidemiologist Zach Binney has therefore continued to use the metaphor of the dull hat with the mesh insert at “CBS Sports”: “If it dribbles, the head may stay dry,” he said. But: “If it pours, you can hardly expect it from a network.” And in Florida, the “State of Sunshine”, it is pouring out of buckets at the moment.
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The state in the southeastern United States now has over 190,000 coronavirus infections, and more than 3,700 people have already died. More than 11,000 new cases were reported on Friday alone, more than ever before in a single day.
The hospitals have already reached their limit, the queues at the mobile test stations are growing, according to US media. The second wave of pandemics is rolling inexorably over the approximately 21 million inhabitants. And here, of all places, does the NBA want to bring its season to an athletic end?
Does she want. The plans for this have been on the table for some time. At the beginning of June, when the number of daily new infections in Florida had leveled off at around 1,000, the league made its concept public: 22 of the 30 teams are to continue the season from July 30, on the grounds of Disney World Orlando, the world’s largest complex of amusement parks, which also includes a huge sports area.
Florida advertised the big sport early on
For this purpose, the NBA has blocked three luxury hotels in which the approximately 1,500 participants are to be accommodated. There should be at least four games every day, first eight placement games for each team and then full play-offs. The new champion will be announced in mid-October.
“When we drafted this plan, we honestly didn’t see an increase in cases coming in this way,” says NBA chief Adam Silver. In fact, in May it looked like the worst was over in Florida. Looking at Europe and the concepts there for the return of professional sports there, the idea of the bubble in Orlando seemed very tempting.
And of course, the NBA was also happy to get Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to recruit. The Republican not only reopened restaurants, bars and beaches as one of the first heads of state in the USA, but also embraced the big sport when the experts warned before the second wave: “All professional sports are welcome in Florida,” cooed DeSantis, which some consider a kind of mini-Trump. “We believe that is important and we know that you can do it safely.”
The NBA has a particularly clean image
The NBA believed that at the time – and continues to do so, even though the situation has now worsened dramatically. “Our model is designed to protect us and our players from outside the community,” said Ligachef Silver.
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And so far there has been little discussion in the United States as to whether the NBA will return to a special social role with its return plans, whether it can be justified from a social perspective that a billion-dollar business will use test capacities and medical resources while the situation in the population is getting worse, or whether it is morally acceptable for a small group of privileged athletes to isolate themselves from the outside world in such a situation in order to do their own business.
Instead, the main question is: bubble or net hat? Is the NBA concept safe and mature enough to last for two to three months? The professionals have been tested regularly since the end of June. After a positive result, 25 of the 351 examined players had to quarantine before they were allowed to travel to Orlando.
And the fact that the bubble will not be a complete bubble, because the Disney Park staff will go in and out, raises considerable doubts as to whether the virus can also be brought in from outside. “If we have a lot of cases, we will stop,” says Silver, but also emphasizes: “I am absolutely convinced that it will be safer on campus than off campus.”
However, some players have already canceled their participation. The players are not only worried about the risk of infection, but also social isolation, the risk of injury or the feared distraction from the “Black Lives Matter” protests, who receive a lot of support from the NBA. “We didn’t sign for it,” says three-way specialist JJ Redick from the New Orleans Pelicans. “These circumstances are not normal for playing NBA basketball.”
The league also saw that. There will be no penalties for players who do not want to participate. However, the professionals can lose up to 15 percent of their salary. And because Florida’s lax to negligent corona policy under Governor DeSantis is unlikely to be contradicted, it will now be particularly important whether they support the NBA’s plans. “We have no choice but to learn to live with the virus,” says Adam Silver. “No options are currently risk-free.” Especially not in Florida.
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