The NBA managed the first wave of the pandemic in an exemplary way.

It was the first major international competition to suspend its season and resume it in a bubble in which there was not a single positive in three and a half months.

But life in the outside world is more complicated.

Only in a week 12 games have been postponed because the teams did not have enough players available between positives, quarantines and injuries.

Rather than stop, the last resort for the hundreds of millions at stake, the league has tightened a protocol that shows the seams.

The teams pass one test daily, two on match days.

The first is an antigen test and the second, a PCR from which the result usually arrives the next day.

And it can happen like

Seth Curry

, who found out in the middle of a game that he had tested positive.

The Sixers point guard was out due to injury but was on the bench with

Joel Embiid

and removed his mask to eat or speak.

The player left the court and the game continued playing;

in another,

Jonas Valanciunas

had to go to rest because he had been in contact with another positive.

The NBA counted on this situation outside of a bubble, but the players did not want to suffer the psychological exhaustion of being weeks (in some cases, months) away from their families again.

The top manager,

Adam Silver

, admitted that contagions would be inevitable although, except for Dallas (four positive) or Washington (six) there have been no major outbreaks in the teams.

But the problem is not only the positives: in a league where it is played every other day, tracking and quarantines are causing some teams to lose up to seven players (in rosters between 14 and 17).

The league has only released the mid-season schedule because it knew it would need room to relocate postponed games, but the current chaos has forced protocol to be tightened.

The measures range from the anecdotal (no high-fives or hugging, no interacting with the opponent before or after matches, and the locker room talk may not last more than 10 minutes) to the more serious: when they play at home They will only be able to leave their homes to go to the equipment facilities (with a proximity sensor) or essential tasks;

when they play outside, they won't be able to leave their hotel room.

The closest thing to going back to a bubble without being inside.

Complaints from the stars

«I feel like I am living in a box.

I'm going to train and go home.

I'm not going anywhere.

I can't go out with my family, because they make their life.

I live on my phone because I can't interact in person, "said

Damian Lillard

, a player for the Portland Trail Blazers, one of the stars of the league.

“We can sweat 48 minutes next to another guy, but we can't talk afterwards.

Has no sense.

If the thing is so serious, maybe we should not be playing, "criticized

George Hill

, guard of the OKC Thunder.

In addition, the NBA is looking for laboratories that promise to provide PCR results on the same day and thus add a third test before each game.

The goal, in addition to avoiding scenes like Curry or Valanciunas, is to detect infections before the incubation process.

It is the reality of sport in a pandemic, which in its case has extra risks: it is a contact sport, in closed halls and in a league where teams continually travel throughout the country.

The purpose is to control the chaos so as not to put the brakes on, a last resort that the NBA refuses.

The reasons are mainly economic: it would be impossible to finish the season before the Olympic Games (if they finally take place), or it would be very difficult for all teams to complete a calendar that has already been cut to 72 games.

It would be a blow in a season in which teams are already losing a lot of money: very few can get spectators in their pavilions and none more than Houston, 4,500.

But also beats underneath a certainty: nothing ensures that the situation would improve if the players left the discipline of their franchises.

Meanwhile, games continue to be suspended from one day to the next, if not a few hours before, which is making this season the most unpredictable in memory.

In the last week, the Sixers had to play a game with only seven healthy men (and one fill) and a few days later, in their duel against Miami, the teams added 15 casualties among 32 players.

The other measure that the NBA is studying is to expand the limit of the templates so that it is easier to present the minimum eight chips.

Another kick forward to save the season amid the pandemic.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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