Trail Blazers and Cavaliers players were allowed to return to team facilities for the first time on Friday to take part in individual workouts with safety protocols in place, as some NBA teams begin to move toward a season restart that commissioner Adam Silver outlined in a league-wide call this week. Several teams are planning to get back to training next week, but organizations in states with ongoing stay-at-home orders will be forced to wait.
For Cavaliers star Kevin Love, the ability to finally shoot a basketball again after weeks of being locked inside was “uplifting.” Love explained all the safety measures the Cavaliers had in place to keep players and staffers safe in an interview with ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, which includes restricting access to some parts of the building, which means Love wasn’t able to take a shower before he left. Love said that getting back on the court was a “dopamine hit” for him.
Via ESPN:
“I feel like anybody who needs an escape or in everyday life is looking for any type of normalcy back doing something they love. For me, I played 25-ish years of organized basketball, and this is the longest I’ve ever gone without touching [a basketball]. And it’s something I really, really enjoy doing.
So for me, it definitely was a big dopamine hit, and it just felt great to get in there and sweat outside of doing my workouts at home or getting on a treadmill. Going out there and having some sense of normalcy and getting on the court and actually shooting was pretty uplifting.”
