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The New Orleans Pelicans game scheduled for tonight against the Dallas Mavericks has been postponed due to COVID-19-related and contact tracing issues.
According to the Dallas Morning News, the Mavericks would have been able to meet the league minimum amount of eight players available, but the NBA decided to postpone the game to conduct further contact tracing for safety reasons.
The Mavericks would’ve had at least eight players available Monday to meet the league’s minimum threshold to play, vice president of basketball communications Scott Tomlin said. But the NBA opted to postpone the contest “to ensure the health and safety of players, coaches and other personnel” as contact tracing continues.
In addition, the Celtics-Bulls matchup slated for tomorrow was also postponed a few hours ago due to the Celtics having an insufficient number of players.
That marks four games now that have been shelved through the first 21 days of the 2020-21 NBA season.
- OKC Thunder vs Houston Rockets on Dec. 23
- Boston Celtics vs Miami Heat on Jan. 10
- New Orleans Pelicans vs Dallas Mavericks on Jan. 11
- Boston Celtics vs Chicago Bulls on Jan. 12
The NBA has scheduled a special Board of Governors meeting for tomorrow, per Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
General managers across the league talked earlier today exploring the potential for taking greater precautions.
Among topics for GM call today centered on tightening protocols, sources tell ESPN: Re-examining shootarounds and practice lengths, pre-and-post game socializing on court (for example, hugs), further restrictions on restaurant dining and tighter rules on mask-wearing.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) January 11, 2021
Do I think the NBA season may be in jeopardy? Yes. Only four games have been suspended to date, but remember how quickly the league office shut things down last March due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Make no mistake, COVID-19 is in control, more than ever before. Thousands of people are losing their lives every day to the virus and there have been delays in the vaccine distribution.
It’s also incredibly difficult to imagine another bubble idea hatching to save the season. Not only does that require a huge undertaking (time to plan, costs associated, etc), the vibe has long been that the players do not want to endure that experience again and who can blame them? Over 60 games remain in this regular season. Only eight games were played before the start of the playoffs in Orlando over last summer.
Stay tuned for further developments.
For more Pelicans talk, subscribe to The Bird Calls podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts. You can follow this author on Twitter at @OlehKosel.