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Report: NBA Teams Can Open Practice Facilities On May 1 If Their States Relax Stay-At-Home Orders

Some NBA players are struggling to get shots up during quarantine. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, and Jayson Tatum have all mentioned that they do not have hoops at their homes, and as such, there are limitations to what guys can do while they’re stuck in one place due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The league has decided to comply with state and federal guidelines by shutting down practice facilities, again limiting options for players. But according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the NBA is going to open its facilities back up under a very specific set of circumstances.

As Wojnarowski tells it, as long as states relax stay-at-home orders, NBA teams are allowed to open up their facilities to players. This would only be for voluntary individual workouts, however, while larger workouts are still prohibited.

A major reason for this decision is reportedly what is going down in Georgia. The state’s governor, Brian Kemp, controversially gave the green light to opening up things like gyms. NBA players apparently asked their orgs what to do in this situation, and Wojnarowski reports, teams would rather that players are in their gyms and not a YMCA somewhere getting shots up.

Naturally, this leads to a question about whether or not the league will start to move toward restarting its season. The answer: no.

There’s no good answer in this situation — it is assuredly far too early for this move, but considering the alternative is players going to environments that teams cannot control, this is the league’s attempt at making the best of a bad situation. Hopefully things don’t come to this and states listen to scientists and medical professionals about when doing this sort of thing will be safe, but if it does, here’s to hoping players taking advantage of this — along with the workers necessary to keep these facilities clean — are able to stay healthy.