All-Star Game Could Take Place In March
The NBA is exploring the possibility of holding an All-Star Game in early March, with Atlanta the most likely site, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports.
The league is in talks with the Players Association about holding an All-Star Game on March 7 after initially postponing this year’s annual event due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. All-Star Weekend was originally scheduled to take place in Indianapolis in February, but Indiana will now host the All-Star Game in 2024.
The interest among the Players Association is partly due to charitable causes. NBPA president Chris Paul wants to hold the game to financially benefit Historically Black Colleges and Universities and assist in COVID-19 relief efforts. Turner Sports, which holds the TV rights, is headquartered in Atlanta.
The game could be held in the Hawks’ State Farm Arena, or an Atlanta-based HBCU campus gymnasium, Wojnaowski adds. The NBA has scheduled a midseason break on March 5-10.
All-Star voting will be held regardless of whether a game is held, Marc Stein of the New York Times tweets.
Leonard, George Placed On Health And Safety Protocol List
Clippers stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George will miss the team’s game in Atlanta on Tuesday after being placed on the league’s health and safety protocol list, the team’s PR department announced.
The superstar duo didn’t fly to Atlanta with the rest of the team, Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN tweets.
The Clippers, who are off to a 13-4 start, carry a seven-game winning streak into their six-game road trip. They’re also schedule to face Miami (Thursday), Orlando (Friday), New York (Sunday), Brooklyn (Tuesday, Feb. 2) and Cleveland (Wednesday, Feb. 3) before returning home to face Boston on Friday, Feb. 5.
It’s possible that Leonard and/or George will join the team at some point on its journey if they clear protocols, Youngmisuk adds.
Leonard and George are the latest big-name players to miss time due to COVID-19 protocols. Jimmy Butler, Karl-Anthony Towns, Kevin Durant and Jayson Tatum are among the top-level players who have been sidelined by the protocols in recent weeks.
Bulls-Grizzlies Wednesday Game Postponed
The Bulls–Grizzlies game on Wednesday night has been postponed in accordance with the NBA’s health and safety protocols, the league announced in a press release.
The postponement is a result of contact tracing within the Grizzlies and the length of time preceding the game during which Memphis will be unable to practice, the release said. This marks the Grizzlies’ fifth straight postponed game (Wednesday and Friday against Portland, plus Sunday and Monday against Sacramento).
Although another game has been postponed, Memphis still has no new players entered into the health and safety protocols, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link).
As our NBA Game Postponement Tracker shows, this is the 21st game suspended by the NBA this season. The Grizzlies (7-6) currently own the sixth-best record in the Western Conference, while the Bulls (7-9) own the tenth-best record in the Eastern Conference.
Michael Porter Jr. Returns To Nuggets, Will Play Friday
JANUARY 22: Porter will be active and will play against Phoenix on Friday night, sources tell ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link).
JANUARY 21: Michael Porter Jr., who hasn’t played in a game since December 29 due to the NBA’s health and safety protocols, has reported back to the Nuggets and will be listed as questionable for Friday’s game against Phoenix, tweets Mike Singer of The Denver Post.
Porter was originally held out for seven days for contact tracing purposes, then tested positive for the coronavirus, extending his quarantine period by another two weeks.
The young forward will have to ramp up his conditioning and complete additional testing – including a cardio exam – before he’s formally cleared to return to the Nuggets’ lineup (Twitter links via Singer and Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN).
While it’s not clear if Porter will be game-ready by tomorrow, head coach Michael Malone said today that he’s optimistic the 22-year-old will be able to play at some point during Denver’s five-game road trip, which begins on Friday in Phoenix and runs through next Friday (January 29) in San Antonio.
Malone stated earlier this week that Porter’s spot in the starting lineup is safe, though he referred to Will Barton today as “a starter,” noting that he feels the Nuggets have more than five starter-caliber players, tweets Singer. As such, it remains to be seen whether MPJ will immediately supplant Barton as the team’s starting small forward or if he’ll be gradually eased back into that role.
NBA Moves Back Start Times For 20 Games
As the NBA begins implementing new same-day COVID-19 PCR testing protocols, the league will be moving back the start times for 20 upcoming games to accommodate testing, Tim Bontemps of ESPN tweets.
These games will be moved to at least 8 p.m. local time during the week and 7 p.m. or beyond on the weekends, Bontemps adds.
The first two impacted games will be the Heat/Nets and Pistons/Sixers bouts scheduled for January 23. Both will be moved to 8 p.m. EST tip-off times. The latest impacted game listed at present is the Cavaliers/Timberwolves contest on January 31, which will move to 7 p.m. CT.
The full list of affected contests is viewable right here, via JD Shaw of Hoops Rumors.
The RT-PCR molecular test can pinpoint genetic viral material in a subject using a laboratory method called polymerase chain reaction. These tests are quite accurate and lab results are generally available on the day of the test.
Grizzlies’ Postponements Represent Evolution In NBA’s Approach
The NBA’s decision to postpone the Grizzlies‘ next three games – despite the team only currently having one confirmed case of COVID-19 – represents an evolution in the league’s approach to the virus and to the 2020/21 schedule, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
For most of the season, when a player has tested positive for the coronavirus, the NBA has conducted a contact tracing investigation for a day or two, then required players to self-isolate for one week if they’re deemed to be a close contact to the person who tested positive. If the affected team still has at least eight players available after the initial investigation, that team has continued playing its games as scheduled.
As Wojnarowski explains, today’s decision to postpone three Grizzlies games essentially means “parking a team and taking them out of circulation” once the club has a player test positive.
There’s no indication at this point that Memphis’ one positive case will result in a larger outbreak, but the league – which tightened many of its COVID-19 protocols last week – appears committed to minimizing the risk of creating a chain reaction among its teams.
If the NBA continues to err on the side of caution and takes teams off the schedule for several days at a time once a player tests positive, it would mean certain teams spend longer periods on the sidelines. However, the hope would be that fewer total teams would be affected by contact tracing and possible positive tests.
NBA Postpones Grizzlies’ Next Three Games
The NBA has postponed the Grizzlies‘ next three games, the league announced in a press release. Memphis is being affected by the NBA’s contact tracing protocols and, as a result, has a number of players unavailable.
The affected games are as follows:
- Friday, January 22 at Portland vs. the Trail Blazers.
- Sunday, January 24 at Memphis vs. the Kings.
- Monday, January 25 at Memphis vs. the Kings.
The Grizzlies had been scheduled to play in Portland vs. the Blazers on Wednesday night, but that game had to be postponed as well.
As of Monday, Jonas Valanciunas was the only Grizzlies player who was ruled out due to the league’s health and safety protocols, with Jaren Jackson Jr., Justise Winslow, and Jontay Porter all sidelined due to injuries.
While the NBA’s contact tracing protocols have affected more players since Monday, it doesn’t sound as if those players have been asked to complete week-long quarantine periods yet, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Wojnarowski tweets that the COVID-19 exposure within the Grizzlies’ organization may be isolated, and that the league is “erring on the side of caution” by deciding to not have the team play its next few games as scheduled.
Chris Herrington of The Daily Memphian adds (via Twitter) that the Grizzlies, for now at least, have just one active case of the coronavirus.
Following this series of postponements, the Grizzlies’ next game (vs. the Bulls) is set to be played on Wednesday, January 27 in Memphis. At that point, it will have been more than a week since the team was first affected by contact tracing. If there are no additional positive tests or other setbacks, that game shouldn’t be in jeopardy.
The NBA has now postponed 20 games in 2020/21, as seen in our tracker. The growing number of postponements will make it a challenge for certain teams to play a full 72-game season.
NBA Postpones Friday’s Wizards/Bucks Game
The game between the Wizards and Bucks that was scheduled to be played on Friday in Milwaukee has been postponed, the NBA announced tonight (Twitter link).
It’s the sixth consecutive postponement for the Wizards, who haven’t played since January 11. The team was cleared to return to the court to practice on Wednesday, but remains significantly shorthanded.
Deni Avdija, Davis Bertans, Troy Brown, Rui Hachimura, Ish Smith, and Moritz Wagner are out due to the NBA’s health and safety protocols, while Thomas Bryant (ACL) and Russell Westbrook (quad) are sidelined due to injuries, leaving just eight available players on the roster (Twitter link).
According to the NBA’s announcement, the game is being postponed due to the number of unavailable players for the Wizards, contact tracing affecting players on the roster, and the club’s lengthy layoff from practicing.
As Fred Katz of The Athletic wrote earlier tonight, Bradley Beal and the Wizards had been planning to lobby for a postponement of Friday’s game, since they felt that potentially playing with the league-mandated minimum of eight players after not practicing for the last week would result in a high risk of injury for the active players.
The next game on Washington’s schedule is Sunday in San Antonio. The hope is that the Wizards will have enough available players – and enough practice time between now and then – to be ready to play that game.
The NBA has now postponed 17 contests this season. The full list is here.
NBA Announces 11 New Cases In Latest Round Of COVID-19 Testing
Eleven of 502 NBA players have recorded positive test results for the novel coronavirus COVID-19 during the last week since the league’s last announcement on January 13, the NBPA tweeted today in a new statement.
Per the NBA and NBPA, players who test positive or have been discovered to have been in close contact with someone who later tested positive are quarantining per the league’s guidelines.
Last week, the league found positive results for 16 of 497 players tested. The NBA has now announced 90 confirmed positive tests since players reported for training camp in early December, though some who tested positive during the preseason may have been camp invitees who have since been cut.
And-Ones: Expansion, Draft Picks, COVID-19 Protocols
There has been plenty of speculation about the possibility of NBA expansion since commissioner Adam Silver opened the door to the possibility during a preseason press conference.
However, Silver said at the time that the issue isn’t on the “front burner” for the league, and stressed again this week in a Sportico event that he doesn’t believe the time is right to focus on expansion, with the NBA still trying to navigate the coronavirus pandemic.
Interestingly, in an apparent reference to a recent report which suggested that league officials have floated a potential $2.5 billion expansion fee, Silver told Sportico that he thought “some of the reported numbers are very low in terms of the value at which we would expand.” While we want to be careful not to read too much into Silver’s comments, especially since expansion is likely still a ways off, the implication there is that the NBA would seek an expansion fee that exceeds $2.5 billion.
Here’s more from around the basketball world:
- The Stepien Rule, which prevents NBA teams from leaving themselves without any first-round picks in two consecutive future drafts, and the Seven-Year Rule, which prohibits teams from trading picks more than seven years in the future, are significantly limiting the ability of certain clubs to trade draft picks right now. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst (Insider link) examines what that means, speculating that it might make it more challenging for some clubs to bid on the next star player who becomes available via trade.
- After recently tightening its health and safety protocols related to the coronavirus, the NBA will increase its efforts to enforce the rules prohibiting pregame and postgame hugs and handshakes between players, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, who says the league will have team security at the midcourt area to discourage those interactions.
- As our JD Shaw relays (via Twitter), the NBA has changed the tip-off times for a number of upcoming games on the scheduled from January 23-31.