A day after the Oklahoma City Thunder had its first two cases of a player missing time due to entering health and safety protocols in Darius Bazley and Tre Mann, the team announced that three additional players have entered protocols in Aleksej Pokusevski, Jeremiah Robinson-Earl and Aaron Wiggins.
With five players under protocols, the Thunder are allowed to sign four replacement players on hardship deals on temporary 10-day contracts. The Thunder’s G League affiliate — the Oklahoma City Blue — run the same offenses and use the same jargon as its superior along with playing in the same arena for home games. So a transition from the Blue to the Thunder would be rather seamless if the franchise opts to call up players from the Blue as their replacements.
The trio of Pokusevski, Robinson-Earl and Wiggins played in Sunday’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans with Mann also being in the building.
Sources: NBA teams will now be required to sign one replacement player when they have two positive tests on the roster. For three positive tests, two replacement signings are required. For four positive results or more, three hardship signings required. https://t.co/tOtwOLzyb4
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) December 20, 2021
Pokusevski, who turned 20 years old on Sunday, played eight minutes. Robinson-Earl played 26 minutes. Wiggins played 32 minutes. Mann participated in warmups before being ruled out during the game.
Tre Mann, Aleksej Pokusevski, Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, Aaron Wiggins were all at Paycom Center last night with the last three playing in the game and speaking with media pic.twitter.com/N4iYnsMVPi
— Clemente Almanza (@CAlmanza1007) December 27, 2021
With five players heading into protocols, it is fair to say that the Thunder are having a COVID-19 outbreak and join the long list of NBA teams with similar struggles in recent weeks. It is now a wait-and-see game for the Thunder to see if they have any additional cases before Tuesday’s game against the Sacramento Kings.
