July 22, 2020

 

No need to go back to the arenas today, so pretty much it is a day off for me.  Seems like all the work we did yesterday paid off as we are ready to go and begin broadcasting.  I should be clearer. I don’t have to go to work today, but both networks are broadcasting scrimmages today.  I’m just not involved.  No games for my crew or in my arena.  So I had to fill my day with something. Normal routine, did my daily testing, both COVID and the NBA Health App.  Now what? 

When I have free time, I don’t know what to do with it.  Sure, I can read some of the books I brought along, I can go to the gym, I can walk the grounds, but often I feel I am just killing time.  I don’t like to kill time, I like to take advantage of it.  If I was home, I would have a lot of things to do.  Work out in the yard, do some improvement indoors that my wife has wanted to do for a long time, take the dogs on a hike, I can always find something constructive to do, even during the COVID pandemic.  But here, my options are limited, very limited. Some of the guys have been playing pickle ball.  Maybe I will pick that up, just not today.

Watching the news is frustrating as hell because everything seems to be about the pandemic.  Shortage of testing, spiking cases, all time high death counts.  But the testing thing is what I am thinking about currently.  I get tested every day.  I do not stand or sit in my car in an endless line that stretches around the corner and beyond.  I walk up to a casita, knock on the door, walk in, get tested, and then leave.  And, in most cases I get my results in 18 to 24 hour.  That’s pretty much the standard procedure inside the NBA bubble.

But then I witness what is occurring outside of here.  Tests are not as easily obtained, and the results take between 3 and 5 days to get back.  Why is that?  Why does the general public not have the same access to testing and results the same way we do?  Only my wife and kids and some of my close family members are aware of what I do each day, and they all ask that question. Why does the NBA get this treatment, and not the general public? Is this not a national, or world-wide problem, something that needs to be addressed globally?  Yet the NBA is able to test everyone every day, and will continue to be able to do so for 3 months. 

I don’t think this is a political issue, it is more of a statement that truly addresses the fact that if you have money, you get what you need.  The NBA could not put on the restart without properly protecting the players and those involved, and luckily I fall into one of those categories.  The NBA has the resources to pay for daily tests for everyone in the green zone for 3 months solid.  No swab shortage, no test shortage, rapid fire results.  The yellow and red folks are tested twice a week and the rapid result time is the same.  Yet nationally, shortages of testing material, PPE, lag in result time, are all commonplace.  Yes, I feel fortunate, very fortunate, but the rest of the country is struggling, people are dying, they continue to get sick, and there is no progress in that regard outside the bubble.  Is there something that can be learned from what is taking place in Orlando?  Is it a template for how things might be able to occur in the outside world?  It’s almost to the point where it seems unfair that athletes making millions of dollars have access to the finest, quickest, most accurate testing equipment (at no cost to them) while millions of people are left in the lurch in regards to their own health.  I don’t want to sound ungrateful to the NBA, I am very grateful and thankful, but the entire system appears to be out of balance.