Despite the number of positive COVID cases in late November to December, which caused multiple games to be postponed, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said that the league would continue with the season.
Silver announced this the day after the NHL announced that play would be suspended due to the omicron variant, becoming the first professional North American sports league to do so. The NHL teams had dealt with outbreaks that landed around 15 percent of the players in protocols, which caused 50 games to be postponed.
The NBA season had relative normalcy until Thanksgiving, when enhanced player testing led to many positive tests. As a result, the count of players that have been in health and safety protocols has surpassed 100; affecting some of the league’s prominent stars, such as Kevin Durant, Lebron James, James Harden, and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The league responded to this outbreak by reinitiating enhanced COVID health and safety protocols and adjusting the roster rules so that teams could sign replacement players to manage the outbreaks without affecting the salary cap and luxury tax payments.
Sayed Shah, a WJPS senior, said, “To me, it doesn’t make any difference, but they should make stricter limits when it comes to them taking safer precautions, but then again, no matter how safe they try to be, COVID seems always to find a way.”
Paul Cobourne, another WJPS senior, said, “I think the NBA is just focusing on making money because when COVID first came around, and they had to shut down for a while, I know they lost a lot of money, which is why they are doing these health protocols to avoid shutting down again and just containing the players that are sick.”
Photo: “logo – Jerry West” by glenn~ is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
