Michele Roberts, executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, admits there’s no way to fully protect players from COVID-19 while they’re in Orlando, writes Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe. Roberts understands that players are entering a risky situation, but said the only alternative to resuming the season under these conditions was to wait for a vaccine and possibly sit out two years.
“That’s the only realistic mind-set you can have going into this. A player is going to test positive,” she said. “It’s not any more of this ‘if’, it’s ‘when’ and what can I do to mitigate against the ‘when.’ When it happens, if I’m not successful, what treatment is available to me, what are my chances of being really, really sick, and how are you detecting the presence of an infection? Honestly, I don’t think this is any different than what any American has to come to grips with.”
Roberts emphasized that no player is being forced to participate in Orlando and there will be no repercussions other than loss of salary. An increasing number of players are objecting to the restart plan and the restrictive nature of the bubble environment.
“I don’t believe any player would say this was forced upon them, it’s not,” Roberts said. “Not a single player has to play. This is not involuntary servitude. I don’t have to work. They don’t have to work. But it’s of course a mitigation of risk with the players. On this health and safety protocol, I’m satisfied that it can’t be any better than this. But I’m candid that it’s not bulletproof.”
Roberts addresses several other topics in the interview:
Players have become more knowledgeable about the virus:
“At the very beginning when we were being told that this was a disease that people like me [middle-aged] had to worry about, it was more of an annoyance for the players, except for those who had family members my age. But it was not something they thought was going to have this kind of an impact on their lives or their livelihood. As time went on and the seriousness was revealed there were times when players were very concerned about it, especially when it became clear it was not confined to folks over 60. I got really serious questions. ‘Is this something I need to be worried about? Can it kill me? Can it impact my ability to continue to play basketball?'”
She believes most players support resuming the season:
“I think the players are where they want to be. They want to give it a shot and if it doesn’t work, well, we tried. Hopefully nothing catastrophic will happen and we can just figure out Plan B. If the worst would happen and it would spread, we shut it down. This is the virus. I’m going to be disheartened, but I’m not going to be surprised because there’s no scientific or medical ability to protect against it. The players know it. The teams know it. We’re doing absolutely everything we can to mitigate it. If I didn’t think we were, that the league was half-stepping, then I would recommend with every ounce of my being that our players not even think about playing again. But that’s thankfully not the case.”
The union hasn’t endorsed Dec. 1 as the start date for the 2020/21 season:
“Dec. 1 is not an attractive option. Those are tough questions that have to be resolved. How do we address the revenue challenges this virus has created and will create next season? I don’t know when they’re going to have fans back in the arena. I don’t think we’re going to have them in October. There are a number of factors that will impact when the season will begin. I don’t know if we’re going to have a second spike. What’s the virus going to look like? And if you’re going to talk about a compressed season, we were able to reduce the amount of back-to-back games, the notion of returning to that and the obvious injury risk that come along with that, is not attractive. But nothing will happen without the players signing off. That’s for sure.”
