The Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder have postponed their opening night time recreation of the 2020-2021 NBA common season with a Covid outbreak sweeping via the Rockets’ locker room. Houston does not have eight available players for the game, so it may’t be performed.
The Rockets had three constructive or inconclusive exams in latest days, and now have 4 gamers out due to contact tracing, per Shams Charania of The Athletic. Star guard James Harden was dominated out for the season opener as nicely for violating the league’s well being and security protocols after being spotted at a club.
Rockets guard Ben McLemore examined constructive for Covid earlier within the week and had been away from the crew. Rookie Kenyon Martin Jr. then examined constructive on Wednesday a day after reportedly getting haircuts with DeMarcus Cousins and John Wall. Cousins and Wall had been dominated out due to contact tracing. Martin subsequently examined detrimental and is now awaiting the outcomes of one other check, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Rookies Jae’Sean Tate and Mason Jones had been additionally dominated out due to contact tracing, per reports. Houston’s roster was going to be painfully skinny if the sport was on. A league mandates states groups will need to have eight out there gamers for a recreation to go on.
Gamers probably unavailable tonight:
James Harden
John Wall
DeMarcus Cousins
Jae’Sean Tate
KJ Martin
Mason Jones
Ben McLemore
Chris Clemons
That leaves Eric Gordon, David Nwaba, Sterling Brown, Danuel Home, PJ Tucker, Christian Wooden, Bruno Caboclo, Brodric Thomas.
— 0️⃣ days since final incident (@DreamShakeSBN) December 23, 2020
The choice to cancel the sport comes after a report that the league was investigating a video of Harden at a membership. Harden admitted to breaking the league’s Covid protocol on Instagram earlier than deleting the publish.
James Harden clarified that the occasion in query was not at a strip membership. By doing so, he admits violating the NBA’s COVID-19 protocols, which prohibit gamers from going to bars, lounges or golf equipment or social occasions with greater than 15 folks. pic.twitter.com/K7GnJTxGBo
— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) December 23, 2020
Harden reportedly examined constructive for Covid forward of the league’s restart within the bubble. He has examined detrimental for the virus in latest days, however nonetheless broke protocol.
This isn’t how the NBA wished to open the brand new season. The league postponed the rest of the 2019-2020 season after Rudy Gobert examined constructive on March 11. The league restarted within the Disney bubble in late July, with the Lakers ultimately being topped as champions. The league opted in opposition to doing a bubble this season, and couldn’t even make it via opening night time and not using a recreation getting postponed.
We’ll replace this story because it develops.
