Though the 2019-20 NBA season had already been put on hold due to the novel coronavirus, Miami Heat players has still been training at the team’s facilities throughout the past week.
Those activities will now be put on hold due to a new safety measure handed down from the league office that will suspend any use of practice and training facilities league-wide.
“It certainly had not been business as usual the past week at AmericanAirlines Arena, but the Miami Heat still were a team getting down to business,” Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel wrote on Thursday.
“Now, in the NBA’s latest step amid the new coronavirus pandemic, the league informed teams Thursday that team facilities must be shuttered to players for workouts or court work starting Friday.
“A source familiar with the Heat approach told the Sun Sentinel that players had been working out on a one-on-one basis with trainers and coaches over the past week, including sessions on the practice court, as well as in the weight room and with the team’s exercise facilities.”
It’s a dramatic step taken by the NBA, but it is surely not a surprising one. After all, major cities all over the country have already been put on varying degrees of lockdown.
In fact, it was those very lockdowns that the league cited when offering its reasoning behind the new measure.
“Consistent with an increasing number of state and local government restrictions, and an emerging consensus regarding how to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus with which the NBA’s infectious disease and public health experts agree, effective tomorrow and until further notice, team practice or training facilities will be closed to players and staff,” the memo read.
Millions of Americans are currently either working from home or being forced into an open-ended vacation as a result of the deadly illness.
It now looks like everyone in the NBA will be operating under that new reality as well.
