NBA Installs Timeout Chairs For Games In Orlando

In the newest of a series of stringent moves that the NBA has made in order to enforce social distancing in the NBA Orlando bubble, the league has installed movable timeout chairs so that the players can maintain distance from their coach while in the huddle and so the staff can easily clean them in between timeouts. During this bubble experiment, the NBA has taken extreme measures to ensure that the players and staff are socially distancing with rules such as no doubles during ping-pong games and giving each player a wristband that tells them if they are developing COVID like symptoms and beep when they come within six feet of another wristband.

Most of this has been detailed in a 113-page memo that the NBA sent out to all players and staff detailing health and safety protocols within the bubble. Although this may seem extreme and overly stringent it has yielded results considering that the NBA announced on Monday that for the first time in their round of testing zero of the 346 players in the bubble tested positive for COVID-19. Numbers that are down from the 16 positives during initial testing. And the two positives from the testing done upon arrival.

It certainly will be an odd experience watching the players and staff socially distance in an empty arena while playing a contact sport, but I believe that the hunger for sports is so extreme that many sports fans will force themselves to adjust quickly to the alien viewing experience to the one that we are so used to.