The coronavirus pandemic has brought the world to a virtual standstill, as citizens across the globe have been relegated to their homes for the foreseeable future. The vast majority of professional sports leagues have been shut down for weeks with no clear sense of when they might be able to resume.
The NBA was among the first to help sound the alarm by putting its season on hiatus last month, and though several ideas have been floated around to potentially finish out the current season, there are simply too many factors at play right now that would undermine the safety of everyone involved.
That leaves players in a particular plight in terms of maintaining their readiness for if and when the games start back up. You might assume that most NBA players have access to state-of-the-art facilities and regulation-size basketball courts to practice at home, but as we learned earlier this week when Steph Curry was forced to purchase and assemble a basketball goal at his home so he could shoot, that’s not necessarily always the case. On Friday, we learned that it’s a similar situation for Bucks stars Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton.
Asked on the Bucks conference call if players have access to any hoops. Giannis and Khris Middleton said they don’t have hoops at home or any real access right now. Khris said he could maybe go to a neighbor’s house to shoot outside, but he’s mostly working out/dribbling at home.
— Matt Velazquez (@Matt_Velazquez) April 3, 2020
Both could certainly take a note from Curry and just order one online and use their free time toward it’s apparently complicated assembly. Otherwise, it seems many players may be finding themselves without the access to practice their craft during the quarantine, and depending on how long this whole ordeal lasts, it could lead to some rusty play down the road, which, to be clear, is very low on the list of concerns we’re all facing right now.