Now that the NBA, board of governors and Players Association have agreed upon a format to restart the league, it’s time to work out all the logistics.
It appears one of the first bullets on the to-do list is to decide how teams will replace players who go down to injury or must quarantine after contracting COVID-19.
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Bobby Marks, the league specifically is discussing how to utilize players on two-way contracts with the NBA and the canceled G League.
These players, like popular Boston Celtics rookie Tacko Fall and Oklahoma City Thunder’s Lu Dort, typically wouldn’t be allowed to play in the postseason aside from in practices, unless their team converted their deal to an NBA contract.
According to ESPN’s sources, the teams are hopeful the league will be willing to negotiate and not keep two-way contract players out of the isolated return at Walt Disney World. The NBA, however, wants to keep things a little less populated.
Here’s a bit from the report:
Many teams are making a case for those (two-way contract) players to be able to join teams in Orlando, essentially an insurance policies for potential sickness and injury on rosters.
In large part due to the advice of medical experts pushing to keep the league’s personnel numbers as limited as possible within the bubble, the NBA’s preferred to keep those players out of Orlando, and keep rosters from expanding to 17 players, sources said.
To open camp with these players on the 22 team rosters would constitute an additional 44 people in the bubble environment — and the NBA is searching for ways to keep those numbers down to limit possible virus carriers and positive tests.
The NBA plans to allow teams to convert two-way players to NBA contracts from June 22 through July 1, but even if it doesn’t go that route, teams still want to be able to have those players living and training with their teammates.
Also eligible to be a replacement player are those who already have been signed in the NBA or on training contracts.
