• Euroleague. Prioritizes playing the rest of the season in its entirety
  • Interview.Alfonso Reyes
  • Bilbao: files a player for leaving for the US

Malcolm Delaney had already shown his concern with the situation and on Saturday he caught a plane and left for the US, against the orders of his club, Barcelona. On Wednesday, after learning of the Euroleague's intention to end the season in its entirety, albeit beyond May, he protested on Twitter already from Baltimore: "Many meetings and not a single one to discuss the health or safety of the players . "

Although the most striking, it is not an isolated case in national basketball, which lives in a tense calm state throughout the crisis unleashed by the coronavirus. Because although the anxiety is widespread, the Spanish basket is already fertile ground in itself to the shocks. While other sports have already decided to cancel sine die competitions - soccer itself announced it on Monday - the CBA also continues to maintain April 24 as an optimistic restart date.

But the uncertainty is like a wick that consumes at great speed the stillness within the Endesa League squads. After more than two weeks since the last game and the last group training sessions - some clubs were more reluctant to cancel them - the players, confined to their homes, do not know very well what to expect. Especially foreigners, who are more than 70%. "There are nerves," confesses Rafa Jofresa , head of the union (ABP), as its president, Alfonso Reyes, is admitted for coronavirus at the Puerta de Hierro Hospital. But our position is to appeal to empathy. We provide legal advice, but in many cases it will have to be a matter of spirit, that the clubs are understanding of their players and vice versa, "explains the former base of Joventut and Barça, who gives as an example of indulgence the situation of foreigners who are locked up alone in an apartment, from Burgos, Santiago or Andorra, with their families thousands of kilometers away. It was Delaney's case.

While in the clubs of the LEB Oro, the second category of national basketball, the exodus has been the majority , in the ACB most of the squads are still waiting. Bicycles at home, such as Valencia, Manresa or Gran Canaria, training plans, video conferences between staff and technical bodies ... But with each passing day, as in so many other professions, clubs have more difficulties to resist financially. And some start taking action.

Several players from Montakit Fuenlabrada.

The first to announce an ERTE, for the first squad and the coaching staff, was the Montakit Fuenlabrada . Then, on Tuesday, the Casademont Zaragoza. Students will be next and there will be more. Barça, for its part, negotiates a decrease in the salary of the players of 70% ... They consider the situation in the club in the southeast of Madrid unfeasible, not only due to the lack of activity, but also due to the complicated economic situation of its sponsors - although the income of Endesa and Movistar continue to arrive. Fuenla was also one of the first to grant permits to foreigners. Five of them (Bobrov, Gillet, Karvel Anderson, Jerome Randle and Anthony Brown) have already left for their countries, although other questions are now being raised.

Because they did it on the condition of returning if the competition resumed, like several of the Obradoiro who also left, like Melo Trimble, the reinforcement of the Students who were on the way, as is happening in several Euroleague clubs (Armani, Villeurbanne, Olympiacos ...) , but the unknown is that, if necessary, they can do it. Tyler Haws, from Bilbao, directly opted to flee to the US, like Delaney on his own, and the club issued him.

“At the beginning of the crisis, they expressed their concern and interest in being able to return to their countries. The club made them see that it was better to stay here because it is a global problem and because there is the intention and the hope that the competition will resume. They understood it », confessed Pedro Martínez about his pupils from Manresa. But, until when?

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