Senior nba franchise coaches could be stripped of the bench for the resumption of competition next week to protect them from coronavirus.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver suggested Thursday that some veteran coaches may not sit on the bench when the season resumes in Orlando on July 31 to protect them from coronavirus, which people don’t like.
Coaches in a room or locker room
“We know that most young people are the least vulnerable, but there are also people in the league, especially some coaches, who are older (…) and more vulnerable. So we’re going to have to adapt our protocols, for example, some coaches might not be on the bench,” Silver said on TNT.
Coaches “may have to respect some social distance. Maybe they can be sidelined in a room or locker room with a blackboard, but as far as matches are concerned, we don’t want them to be as close to the players to protect them,” he said.
“These are issues that we continue to work on,” the league boss concluded, adding that all the people from the delegations gathered at the Disney World sports complex in Florida would be tested daily at Covid-19.
Popovich and D’Antoni without a bench?
Coaches affected by the proposed restrictive measure include San Antonio Spurs gregg Popovich (71), Mike D’Antoni (69) at the helm of the Houston Rockets and Alvin Gentry (65), who leads the New Orleans Pelicans.
He responded to ESPN by saying that depriving coaches of the bench “doesn’t make sense.” “How can I coach this way?” asked Gentry, arguing that veteran coaches “should not be distinguished” from others.
On Thursday, franchise owners approved a plan to restart the championship on July 31 at Disney World, with 22 teams playing a few regular-season games, before possible play-offs for the play-offs. They will follow until the finals, with an epilogue set for October 12 at the latest.
