The Miami Heat’s meeting against the Chicago Bulls, at one point, seemed like it was going to be a potential early-season measuring-stick showdown between two of the best teams in the Eastern Conference. Instead, the Heat only had 10 players available because of injuries and one COVID-19 case and the Bulls were down to 11 because of a larger COVID outbreak within the team.
It was the sort of situation that was somewhat commonplace last year and, at least so far, has been much more rare this season, but the omicron variant’s arrival in the United States in time for the holiday season has stoked worries of a new wave of cases across the country. The same angst is felt within the NBA, even though more than 95 percent of the league is vaccinated and breakthrough cases are frequently asymptomatic. It has the NBA trying to sort through the questions as so many other people: How concerning should the coronavirus be for people who are fully vaccinated and boosted?
“We all have to figure this out right now,” coach Erik Spoelstra said Saturday in Miami. “Are players missing games because they’re symptomatic? Are they asymptomatic? Has everybody gotten their shots and their boosters? Why would they be held out extensively longer than if they have the flu? I think there’s a contradiction there, and if you just go hunting for and add more testing and try to find things, you probably will.”
The current NBA policy requires players — whether they’re vaccinated or symptomatic — to either quarantine for 10 days or return consecutive negative PCR tests 24 hours apart in order to return after testing positive for the coronavirus.
Chicago coach Billy Donovan said Saturday, “We’ve got a lot of guys sitting at home with no symptoms right now.” Wing Caleb Martin is also asymptomatic, Spoelstra indicated, and will likely have to sit out until Dec. 21, even though he and every one of his teammates has their booster shots, in addition to being fully vaccinated.
Martin, understandably, is frustrated, Spoelstra said — he went off for 28 points in the best game of his career Wednesday to help stun the Milwaukee Bucks, then tested positive Saturday and couldn’t follow it up — and so was Spoelstra. The Heat (16-11) is scheduled to begin a four-game, seven-day road trip Monday at 7 p.m. against the Cleveland Cavaliers (16-12) at Quicken Loans Arena and knows it may suddenly become shorthanded, even though no one is showing symptoms.
Miami underwent a round of testing before its 118-92 rout of the Bulls at FTX Arena, then another round after the game. The Heat reported no further COVID-19 issues prior to Sunday afternoon’s flight to Cleveland.
But Jimmy Butler (tail bone contusion), Bam Adebayo (thumb surgery), Markieff Morris (whiplash) and Martin (protocols) remain out and did not travel with the team on Sunday. Victor Oladipo, who has not played this season as he recovers from May knee surgery, traveled Sunday for the first time this season but just to acclimate to the road and spend more time around the team.
“It’s kind of hectic before the game. Everybody had to get tested, make sure we was good,” center Dewayne Dedmon said Saturday. “With this new COVID, it just kind of comes with the territory.”
As for the Bulls, their own COVID-19 outbreak grew on Sunday with Zach LaVine and Troy Brown Jr. entering the NBA’s health and safety protocols. LaVine played 38 minutes and Brown played 34 minutes against the Heat on Saturday.
The challenge the league faces is the same one most people do: There’s still not a ton of information about how effective the vaccines are at curbing transmission, even as they’re proven effective at limiting symptoms and decreasing the likelihood of contracting the virus.
Teams also ramp up testing when a player tests positive, which means some of those asymptomatic cases typically ignored by the NBA get found. Currently, the league doesn’t require teams to test asymptomatic players regularly when at home, with more regular testing occurring on the road.
Still, Spoelstra said there was no “trepidation” about playing Saturday because everyone on the team is vaccinated and boosted, and there was a very small chance of them actually getting sick from the virus.
“We went through the testing, we’ve all been vaccinated, we’ve all gotten our boosters. All of the examples of people who have gotten it, the symptoms seem to be extremely minor and so we’ll just have to see where this goes from here,” Spoelstra said. “This is different than where it was last year and I think we’ll all just have to work together and, adapt and figure out what the best course of action will be going forward, but having asymptomatic players sitting out—I don’t know if that’s the answer or for losing extended periods of time, two weeks or 10 days, without any kind of recourse to that.”
During warm-ups, there was a reminder of how strange this moment remains, though. For the first time, point guard Kyle Lowry shot around before the game with a mask covering his mouth and nose.
Caution still reigns supreme in the NBA.
“I’m trying to protect myself, I’m trying to protect my teammates, I’m just trying to protect everyone that I’m going to be around,” Lowry said Saturday. “Now with this, we’re just going to be testing more and all that stuff, so it’s just protection and trying to keep everyone around me safe, and just be safe myself. It’s kind of one of the things where you take precautions as much as you possibly can because you realize that it can happen right away and it can be a scare that you don’t want to have.
“It’s tough for a guy like Caleb to be going through this situation, it’s tough for the Bulls to be going through this situation, it’s tough for the real world to be going through this situation. In basketball, we want health. We want our guys to get healthy, but there’s people out there that are still getting sick by the virus and it’s something we just can’t control right now, so we’ve just got to find ways to be safe.”
