The NBA 2020 season relaunch begins tonight with a TNT doubleheader featuring Jazz/Pelicans and Clippers/Lakers matchups in the bubble from ESPN Wide World of Sports.
We’ve covered how the NBA and its broadcast partners will approach the challenge of broadcasting games from three Disney World venues without fans:
NBA to bring fans “courtside” in 2020 season relaunch
NBA virtual grandstand, lots of tech planned for season resumption
It would appear that the bubble approach undertaken by the NBA has worked, with teams confined to their comfy Disney World resorts: no positive tests in the results announced yesterday by the players association:
NBA and NBPA Announce COVID-19 Test Results pic.twitter.com/7qPHfL8fK2
— NBPA (@TheNBPA) July 29, 2020
These results stand in stark contrast to what is happening in Major League Baseball, where officials there eschewed a bubble approach and instead allowed players to stay in their own homes. MLB has suspended the 2020 Miami Marlins season after four more players tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, leaving officials scrambling to reschedule games. Since our story ran another Marlins player tested positive for COVID-19, as well as a Philadelphia Phillies staffer.
And while life in the bubble may have its limitations–lots of beer, no sex–players and coaches say it was the only way to ensure the NBA 2020 season relaunch.
.”I think what the NBA has done … in the environment we are all in is spectacularly brilliant,” 76ers coach Brett Brown told CNN. “I think it’s elite — I have zero complaints about anything that might prohibit us from doing our job.”
