NBPA Exec Dir Michele Roberts said that returning to a bubble "might be the only feasible way for the NBA to complete next season" as well, according to Tim Bontemps of ESPN.com. Roberts yesterday said, "If tomorrow looks like today, I don't know how we say we can do it differently. If tomorrow looks like today, and today we all acknowledge -- and this is not Michele talking, this is the league, together with the PA and our respective experts saying, 'This is the way to do it' -- then that's going to have to be the way to do it." After Roberts in May said that she was "concerned a bubble could have players feeling like they were incarcerated," yesterday she said that she is "quite pleased with the conditions on the ground." Roberts: "The medical facilities and the physicians on campus, I'm not worried about anyone getting sick and not being able to get absolutely immediate health care. So, no, I am completely satisfied that we've come up with the right protocol. ... The players are largely cool with it" (ESPN.com, 7/28). Clippers coach Doc Rivers said of the bubble, "We don't know if this is going to work or not, but I think the league has given us every chance for this to work. If we do it right, we have a shot" (N.Y. TIMES, 7/29).
SILVER STAYS CONFIDENT: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver today said of the Orlando bubble, “We have confidence in this protocol that we designed.” He added, “Everyone who is on that campus is tested on a daily basis. They’re taking extraordinary precautions. The only time when they're not wearing masks is when they’re actually playing basketball. To the extent that somebody tests positive, we’ll obviously track them closely. We quarantine people who first come down.” Silver, on what it would take for the NBA to cancel games: “It’s not an exact science, because nobody’s ever done this before. We have plans in place where we might pause, similar to what baseball’s doing now, if we had any significant spread at all. We’d immediately stop. … Ultimately, we would seize completely if we saw that this was spreading around the campus.” Silver added, “It’s health and safety first. That’s always been our guidepost going into this. … We jokingly have said, but maybe it’s not so funny, that the safest place in the world may be on this campus at Disney right now. If that were to turn out to not be the case, then certainly we would stop” (“GMA,” ABC, 7/29).
