The NBA adjusted its health and safety protocols Tuesday in an effort to stem the tide of rising COVID-19 positive tests and contact tracing that has led to several postponed games.
Here's an FAQ to help explain the new reality the league faces for at least the next two weeks.
Where do the NBA's health and safety protocols stand now?
In short, the league doesn't want players to leave their homes or their hotel rooms unless it's to go to practice, a game or an essential activity like grocery shopping or seeing a doctor.
Players are no longer allowed to have guests in their hotel rooms on the road. Previously, they could have two as long as they were family members or close friends who lived in that city, a practice that had drawn scrutiny in recent days.
They also want to limit players' time close to each other. While at arenas or practice facilities, pregame meetings in the locker room can now last no more than 10 minutes. Every other meeting of player and staff must happen either on the court, in a league-approved space, or in a room big enough for everyone involved to be at least 6 feet apart.
Players must wear masks now basically all the time, except for when they are playing and immediately upon exiting the game. They are asked not to have extended conversations with players before and after games while also keeping at least 6 feet apart as much as possible, and must have the same seating chart on team planes as they do on the bench during games.
Also, all treatment sessions at hotels -- including massages and physical therapy -- must occur in large, open spaces, and need 12 feet between stations. These interactions also require both masks and face shields.
What were teams previously allowed and not allowed to do on the road?
In many cities, the NBA approved up to three restaurants where players were permitted to eat in small groups. In New York, however, that was not the case, according to Nuggets coach Mike Malone, who said last week that his team was forced to stay in its hotel -- something all teams will now have to do in every city.
The protocols originally said that members of each team's traveling party were prohibited from entering any of the following: a large indoor gathering (classified as 15 or more people); bars, lounges or clubs; gyms, fitness studios, sports clubs, spas or pools; music, dance clubs or movie theatres; or bowling alleys, arcades, casinos, pool halls or similar indoor facilities. Museums, however, were allowed, as were casinos, under certain conditions.
Those exceptions have now been eliminated.
How does the NBA decide to postpone a game?
The NBA has a simple formula when it comes to postponing a game for health reasons: The game is postponed if one of the teams involved can't field an active roster of eight players, the minimum required to play.
Saturday, the Philadelphia 76ers played the Denver Nuggets with only seven healthy players, after upgrading Mike Scott -- who was still hurt, and unable to play -- to active after announcing Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons would both sit out with injuries when they weren't listed with injuries on the league's official injury report the day before.
How many games have been postponed so far?
Seven games have been postponed this season -- including six so far this week.
The first was Dec 23, when the Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder game was postponed because of a combination of positive tests and contact tracing among the Rockets. Sunday's game between the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics was postponed because the Heat didn't have enough players, as was Monday's game between the New Orleans Pelicans and Dallas Mavericks and Tuesday's game between the Celtics and Chicago Bulls. Three games scheduled for Wednesday January 13 have been postponed: Jazz-Wizards, Magic-Celtics and Hawks-Suns.
Four teams -- Boston, Dallas, Miami and Philadelphia -- each have at least four players currently sitting out due to the league's Health and Safety Protocols.
Will all the postponed games be played? When?
Like so many questions about this pandemic, the answer is: it depends. The NBA purposely released only half of its schedule to start the season, and built in a six-day midseason break, in order to allow for flexibility in rescheduling games that are postponed due to COVID-19. Theoretically, the games that are postponed now would be built into that second-half schedule, or played during that midseason break. There's also a chance that the league could ultimately wind up having some teams play less than 72 games if the results don't matter in the standings. This is what happened with MLB's regular season, in which two teams -- the St. Louis Cardinals and Detroit Tigers -- played 58 games, while the other 28 teams each played 60.
Why doesn't the NBA have taxi squads like the NFL, NHL and MLB?
The NHL recently changed its roster rules to allow teams to carry between four and six additional players on its taxi squad.
The additional players are allowed to practice with the team and travel on away games, thus providing an insurance policy if there is an outbreak of COVID-19-related cases.
Major League Baseball and the NFL also allowed each team to have reserve players, giving teams an immediate option to replace a player who tested positive for COVID-19. The adjustment to the roster rules in these sports eliminated the delay in signing a player and that player becoming available to play after going through a testing or quarantine process.
The NBA loosened its rules for two-way players and boosted the number of active players per game from 13 to 15 but did not expand rosters or create reserve roster spots.
Can teams replace players sitting out due to the health and safety protocols?
Only if those players tested positive for COVID-19. The league adjusted its hardship exception rule -- which allows teams to add players if it has at least four miss three consecutive games and who will be out for two more weeks -- before the season to allow teams to replace players who test positive before reaching the three-game threshold.
Teams cannot sign players, however, to replace players who are caught up in contact tracing but continue to test negative.
The challenge with this rule change is that a replacement player would still have to go through the testing and quarantine protocol and would not be eligible to play right away.
So, what about expanding rosters?
Expand the rosters. Sign players that are in a pool. G Leauge, vets, whatever, so there is available bodies, games can continue. https://t.co/eg67loB0YN
— 🏁 Jamal Crawford (@JCrossover) January 11, 2021
Doing so would add a financial component, due to the increase in team salaries. However, if the league decides to allow teams to carry additional players, it could structure the extra roster spots to be like extra two-way players (who earn a flat salary of $499,155) to minimize the impact on teams' bottom lines.
What is the return-to-play process once a player is identified as a close contact? What does the player do in the period he sits out?
If a player is deemed to have been exposed to COVID-19, he has to be quarantined for a period of roughly seven days while continuing to register daily negative tests.
Is another bubble a possibility? What about multiple bubbles or a playoff bubble?
Before the season began, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said that having a bubble for an entire season would be untenable, due to the amount of time away from family and friends that would cause. He did, however, leave the door open to potentially returning to one for part of the season, if necessary.
What is clear is the NBA definitely doesn't want to return to a bubble. Ultimately, the league would love to get back to a point when it could have fans in the stands in home arenas again -- which, of course, can't happen if the league has to go back into a bubble environment. That also isn't something the players want to do.
In short: If things deteriorate to the point where the league has no choice but to return to a bubble to finish its season, that scenario could happen. But both sides will do everything they can to finish the season outside of one.
The NBA added "series" to cut down on travel, but why wasn't more done (such as increased divisional play, eliminating interconference play, etc.)?
In creating the 72-game schedule it did, the NBA achieved two goals: having as representative a season as it could in the middle of a global pandemic, and a simple schedule, with three games being played against each of the 14 teams in a team's conference (42 games) and two games against each of the 15 teams in the opposite conference (30 games).
It certainly doesn't hurt that the schedule also allowed for high-profile matchups to take place -- like, for example, Kevin Durant facing his old team, the Golden State Warriors, on opening night.
The NBA could have done something along the lines of what MLB did, and formatted its schedule geographically to reduce travel and also to reduce risk of spreading the virus. Ultimately, however, it chose not to do so.
The NBA has said it won't "skip the line" for vaccines. Could that stance change?
It's hard to know exactly how the vaccine question will shake out -- in part because it's unclear how it will shake out nationally, given the issues seen during the roll-out so far. That said, it is probably informative to look back at how the NBA handled testing last summer as a guide.
The NBA didn't return to practice, and didn't resume play in the bubble, until it felt confident it could get tests that weren't sapping the supply where they were needed, and even then went on to help provide testing in its cities. It would make sense for the league to follow a similar path in this case, assuming players are on board with taking the vaccine in the first place.
Are there growing injury concerns?
What has gone under the radar are the injuries that have begun to pile up.
The Atlanta Hawks, Cleveland Cavaliers, Memphis Grizzlies and Orlando Magic have a combined 24 players who are out for an extended period of time.
Each one of those teams has already been granted a hardship exception for roster relief. However, a COVID-19 outbreak for any of the above teams before they're able to add players via the hardship exception could result in the number of games being postponed growing exponentially.
Meanwhile, the list of players out for the season (or an extended period of time) continues to grow.
The Wizards' Thomas Bryant suffered a torn ACL and joins Spencer Dinwiddie and Markelle Fultz as players who have recently suffered a significant knee injury.