LThe NBA is managing to weather the storm caused by the micron variant of COVID-19. The season continues despite the fact that some days the number of players included in the health and safety protocols against the coronavirus has far exceeded one hundred. The League allowed 10-day contracts and that those salaries would not be counted in the salary limit of the franchises. Anything to avoid postponements of matches and the collapse of the competition, although this would cause alignments difficult to recognize and results sometimes distorted by absences.
The 10-day contracts signed in December have been more than 100. With so much temporary, the number of players who have played a game this season now stands at 572. It is the record in NBA history exceeding the previous top by 32. Keep increasing as long as the shoots do not subside. And give rise to surreal situations like those that have already been experienced with some emergency signings. Such have been the urgencies of transfers to reunite the eight troops needed to play that, as a general manager confessed to the journalist John Hollinger (The Athletic), “A team has signed a player without knowing who he is. And they have guaranteed me that it is not the only case”.
Filed because he was caught nearby
Maybe it was Aric Holman, pvot of 24 years and 2.08 meters, claimed by the Heat. The main reason for his signing was … that he caught him close. Those of Miami, with the squad very depleted, they must play in San antonio and he was with the Austin Spurs, a slo hour and a half by car. Perfect. The game was postponed, but he ended up signing his contract for 10 days.
In the case of Greg Monroe Total ignorance of the environment was demonstrated. The pvot, with 635 NBA games, had not played in it since the 18-19 season. After a gray passage through the Euroleague (Bayern y Khimki), trained with the linked team of the Wizards on the G League. The Timberwolves and flew to Minnesota just in time to meet the Celtics. Before the game they asked the coach Chris Finch if he was going to play a lot. “No idea. I’ll have to ask him. I just met him half an hour ago “, I replied. One of the best of that meeting was Jaylen Nowell, who scored 29 points. After the victory, Monroe was sincere: “He has played marvelously, but I will not lie: I didn’t know who it was “.
He is one of many veterans who have made it to the NBA when they probably no longer had it. “I’m not going to lie. My immediate reaction is that I didn’t believe it. I thought my agent was joking with me,” he says. Mario Chalmers, who has returned to the Heat, with whom I won two rings (2012 and 2013) being the starting point guard of that team of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade y Chris Bosh. At 35, he returns after leaving the League in 2018 and going through Italy, Greece, Puerto Rico and the G League.
Even more striking is the return of Joe Johnson, who has played a game with the Celtics, the same team that drafted him in 2001. Then he was 20 years old and now he has already turned 40. And the controversial Lance Stephenson, after playing six games with the Hawks just committed to Pacers, the team in which he made his debut in the League in the 10-11 academic year and with which he lived a third stage, in principle, brief.
Debut and positive
Ah is tambien Isaiah Thomas, to whom the injuries have persecuted and for whom the doors of the NBA seemed closed. The Lakers They signed him for 10 days and he played four games at an acceptable level. His contract was not renewed, but he was called urgently by the Mavericks. Travel in a hurry a Sacramento to debut with them. At the height of my bad luck, the next morning I entered the health protocols. The same had happened to Brandon Knight, another temp committed to Dallas.
These are just a few strange cases since coronavirus outbreaks began that they have put the NBA in check, but that have served to keep the competition going. Another thing is that in recent dates it has resembled what it was and that fans are having a hard time identifying with those who for some days are wearing their team jersey.