Doc Rivers on a bubble-free NBA season: 'I’m very concerned if we can pull this off'
Coach Doc Rivers may be with the Philadelphia 76ers now, but he’s still the same Doc. He’s still giving honest answers to difficult questions, and Tuesday’s news conference was no different.
With the new NBA season starting on Dec. 22 and COVID-19 cases rising all over the country, ESPN reporter Cassidy Hubbarth asked Rivers what his concerns are about playing the season without the benefit of a bubble. He didn’t sugarcoat it: he’s worried.
I asked Doc Rivers about his concerns starting this season not in a bubble environment:
“I’m very concerned if we can pull this off.
Just watching football, college, Ohio State missed some games, Pittsburgh and Baltimore can’t even play a game... 1/3— Cassidy Hubbarth (@CassidyHubbarth) December 1, 2020
Rivers picked the perfect examples to illustrate his concerns. College football games have been canceled left and right due to outbreaks. Ohio State is 5-0 but if one of their two remaining games is canceled, they’ll be ineligible for the College Football Playoffs despite their sparkling record.
Over in the NFL, the game between the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers has been postponed three times due to an outbreak on the Ravens. The Denver Broncos had to play with a practice squad quarterback on Sunday because their starter and all of the backups either had COVID-19 or were being isolated due to exposure.
Imagining those kinds of COVID-19 issues in basketball is somehow worse. Rivers pointed out that a positive COVID-19 test in basketball has a much greater impact than in football simply because the two sports are different. It could wreak havoc on a team’s entire season.
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“the difference in football is they play once a week and have 1000 players so when you miss three or four players, you can still get away with it.
if we missed 3 or 4 players, we’re in trouble especially with the amount of games we’re playing three or four days a week.”— Cassidy Hubbarth (@CassidyHubbarth) December 1, 2020
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“so if one of our guys and two of our key guys gets the virus and they miss 10 days to 14 days that can be eight games and that can knock you out of the playoffs. So that’s a concern. Our guys health is a concern.”— Cassidy Hubbarth (@CassidyHubbarth) December 1, 2020
The season starts in three weeks so Rivers is probably not the only coach with these concerns. At this point we don’t know how the NBA will deal with these issues, but we do know one thing: without a bubble, they will have to deal with them.
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