The NBA has informed each of its 30 teams to assign a senior executive to the position of facility hygiene officer, sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
It’s a position that will be made necessary by the coronavirus pandemic as teams begin reopening their practice facilities. As we detailed earlier today, that could start happening as early as May 8, though the NBA has implemented a number of restrictions and contingencies related to that plan.
Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today notes (via Twitter) that one of the two memos the league sent to teams today is a 14-page document that thoroughly outlines the health and safety conditions that must be in place for facilities to be reopened.
Besides the rules we described in our earlier story – most of which are mentioned in the NBA’s press release – one measure the league has asked teams to take is to conduct certain precautionary tests (resting ECG and troponin) on players before they resume working out at team facilities, as Charania reports (Twitter link).
Here’s more on the NBA’s coronavirus-related hiatus:
- Although the NBA is clinging to a “pie-in-the-sky” plan of playing five to seven several regular season contests if it can resume its 2019/20 season, sources who spoke to Marc Berman of The New York Post believe it’s more likely that the league would move directly to a 16-team playoff, perhaps in Las Vegas.
- With the NBA still prioritizing finishing its current season, Jabari Young of CNBC looks at the possibility of the 2020/21 campaign beginning in December and explores whether it makes sense to push back the start of the season on a permanent basis.
- Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle runs some numbers and estimates that – even without media or fans in the arena – an NBA game might require about 120-150 people in attendance, which will complicate plans to safely resume the season.
- While virtually every NBA team announced plans last month to pay its part-time arena workers the wages they’d be losing as a result of the postponed games, a USA Today report finds that not all arena staffers are benefiting from those initiatives. Nancy Armour, Rachel Axon, Steve Berkowitz, and Tom Schad of USA Today suggest there are “substantial discrepancies” in how tens of thousands of game-day workers are receiving financial aid — and “widespread reticence” from teams to disclose the specifics of their assistance plans.
No surprise there, of course teams are reluctant, ’cause they are penny pinching money from the poor workers. That is the biggest lesson from this virus it causes extreme poverty to the little man on the street, but the rich ain’t affected at all.
Give me my ticket money back assholes
Jumping immediately into the playoffs during a pandemic of a virus that directly affects the heart and lungs seems like a really dangerous idea.
The Feigan estimate is bizarre. 10 caoches per team?– yet they do not have to be on-site. 150 people way overstates. But Silver is in charge, so maybe it will take 300… assuming he hasn’t given up yet.
Forget perfect. Go for good enough.