The Sunday Mail
The Pelicans and Trail Blazers played their game last week.
That’s it.
That’s the story, with the NBA caught in a Covid-19 wave.
Nine games (and counting) have been postponed so far.
More than 100 players have entered health and safety protocols this month. In the last week, the league has added about 10 more players to the list each day.
And on Tuesday, Adam Silver confirmed during an ESPN interview that the omicron variant is responsible for roughly 90 percent of the NBA’s new cases.
Silver called omicron “beyond dominant”.
Some have suggested the NBA pause its season, but Silver isn’t one of them.
“Frankly, we are having trouble coming up with what the logic would be behind pausing right now,” Silver said.
“As we look through these cases literally ripping through the country, let alone the rest of the world, I think we are finding ourselves where we sort of knew we were going to get to over the past several months, and that is this virus will not be eradicated, and we are going to have to learn to live with it.”
In a few short weeks, the omicron variant has swept through the United States of America, with more than 73 percent of new coronavirus cases omicron, per the CDC (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention).
In the Northwest and Southeast, omicron accounts for 95 percent of the circulating virus, and omicron cases nationwide are doubling every three days. A pause to allow teams to get players back would seemingly make sense, but would a pause amount to anything more than a delay?
Silver doesn’t think so.
Pelicans coach Willie Green was asked whether he was comfortable with the league’s decision?
“I am very comfortable with it,” says Green.
“These are circumstances not just the NBA, but the whole world is navigating.
“There are some difficulties that come along with that.
“That being said, I think we are learning more and more about Covid and NBA has done an awesome job of trying to navigate these different circumstances.
“We still have to be safe and do everything that we can to protect ourselves,” he said
The NBA’s priority isn’t beating Covid-19 — it’s navigating it.
It has to decide when to test.
Players have expressed frustration at being sidelined despite being asymptomatic.
One player said he was informed he tested positive just as he was heading to the gym to work out.
Trae Young, in response to a question on Twitter asking whether he would miss the Hawks’ Christmas Day game against New York, tweeted: “The NBA could solve some of its Covid-19 issues by simply not testing as much”.
It’s an approach the NFL is taking, but the NBA seems to be taking a different tack. The league intends to increase its testing between December 26 and January 8, a stretch that covers Christmas and New Year’s.
That will undoubtedly lead to more players landing in protocols and impacting the integrity of the games, something Silver, frankly, didn’t seem overly concerned with.
“There is a real sense of brotherhood among the guys in this league,” Silver said.
“There is a sense of partnership among the teams.
“I also think there is a broader responsibility.
“Sports have been a bellwether of sorts in our society … Our ability to find a way to keep operating is also significant for society, to show that there are ways, despite living in this Covid era, that we can find a safe and responsible way to keep going,” he said.
The focus, Silver said, is to get as many players three-shot vaccinated as possible.
Perhaps the most interesting piece of information Silver revealed was that there were very few breakthrough cases for players who had been fully vaccinated and boosted.
“Only a very small number of those people have been breakthrough cases where they have turned positive,” Silver said.
The NBA has a 97 percent vaccination rate.
Around 65 percent of those players have received a booster, a number Silver — and the players’ union — desperately wants to see grow. – ESPN.
