Beal 'wouldn’t be totally against' NBA moving season into bubble originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
As the Wizards continue to see their games postponed, with now six that will need to be made up, the NBA’s plan to play a regular season amid a global pandemic is proving to be increasingly challenging.
The league has continued to adjust its rules by adding stricter guidelines for players in order to keep them safe. But as the virus continues to spread around the league and across the country, it’s probably fair to ask at this point whether some sort of a bubble system will be necessary. The NBA, of course, completed its 2019-20 season in a bubble down in Orlando, FL.
There is the option of a centralized bubble or regional sites, an idea that was bandied about in the lead-up to the 2020-21 season. Either way, Wizards guard Bradley Beal doesn’t think it would be the worst idea.
“I probably wouldn’t be totally against it as long as we had the same success that we did the first go-around. I wasn’t part of the bubble in the first go-around, so I don’t necessarily know how all that worked down there every day. But I know going through it every day here, it’s a lot,” he said.
“We test twice a day at least for the last week. That’s very overwhelming at times. But I feel like if we’re able to be safe and control the virus and just control the spread of it; I’m all in favor of it. I just want to hoop. Hoopers hoop.”
As Beal notes, he wasn’t in Orlando for the 11 games the Wizards played there. He sat out due to a shoulder injury and didn’t have to spend the weeks others did at Disney World, in isolation from his family. Being removed from society was tough on the players that were there as many felt the effects mentally and emotionally. Paul George, for one, spoke out about the toll it took on him.
So, Beal can’t speak from experience in that regard, but he has seen firsthand how difficult it is to play basketball with the coronavirus spreading invisibly from player to player. As much testing and social distancing as they do, it has been hard to contain.
Whether the NBA ends up going the bubble route again is unclear. But the Wizards are proving to be an extreme example of just how wrong things can go and surely the league has to be concerned at this point.
