Miami Heat appreciative of NBA bubble amid NFL scramble due to COVID-19
The process has been a tedious marathon, these past three-plus months in relative isolation in the NBA’s bubble type of a setting at Disney World.
But with the NFL forced to cancel, postpone and alter its schedule while attempting to play without a quarantine approach amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, and with college football dealing with similar interruptions, Miami Heat guard Duncan Robinson said Sunday there is an abiding appreciation for his league’s efforts.
“I think it a huge testament to all the people behind the scenes that made it happen,” Robinson said ahead of Game 6 of the NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers at Disney’s Wide World of Sports complex. “I don’t think necessarily people back home realize how much is going into each and every single game. And that’s really outside of the players, but really people behind the scenes, working with the league.”
Robinson said it has taken a village, and that the commitment of those in the league to see it through speaks to how much the NBA has prioritized safety and health while completing a schedule amid a pandemic.
“They’ve been here pretty much a hundred days, as well,” he said. “So all that sacrifice, we certainly owe it to them.
“The forward thinking of the league to really be the first to kind of have this idea, and then to actually follow through with it from an execution standpoint, has been really impressive.”
Having dealt with COVID-19 and been sidelined for weeks prior to the NBA’s resumption of play in late July, Heat guard Kendrick Nunn said Sunday he could only imagine what it would be like for an infected a football player to return.
“I guess it all depend on the person. Some people recover within a couple of days, some weeks,” he said after the Heat’s morning walkthrough. “Unfortunately, mine was a little bit long, like two weeks, two and a half weeks to actually get that negative test.”
While for some in the NFL being sidelined has merely been a case of testing positive but being asymptomatic, Nunn said he is an example of an athlete having to push through the complications.
“It was tough,” he said, with the teammates Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro and Derrick Jones Jr. also having dealt with COVID-19 along the way. “But it just took some patience and faith. So I’m glad I got over that.”
Only in recent days did Nunn again truly feel back to himself, having had to leave the Disney bubble along the way for a death in the family and then return to quarantine in isolation.
“It was tough,” he said of regaining his stride. “It was tough, I’d say. Definitely tough, But the good thing I was here stacking those days on top of each other, being consistent in routine and trying to get to that peak of my game as quickly as possible.”
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