Nikola Vucevic had to raise his voice a bit to answer a question on Thursday. He had just walked off the court after the first Orlando Magic practice of the restart and some of his teammates remained on the floor engaged in a loud and enthusiastic shooting contest.
After four months, basketball was truly back.
Full-scale practices inside the NBA bubble at the Disney complex started with the Magic — the first to get into the campus earlier this week — becoming the first team formally back on the floor. By the close of business on Thursday, all 22 teams participating in the restart were to be checked into their hotel and beginning their isolation from the rest of the world for what will be several weeks at least.
Photo: Reuters
By today, all of the teams should have practiced at least once.
“It’s great to be back after four months,” Vucevic said. “We all missed it.”
The last eight teams were arriving on Thursday, the Los Angeles Lakers and Philadelphia 76ers among them. Lakers forward LeBron James lamented saying farewell to his family, and 76ers forward Joel Embiid — who raised some eyebrows earlier this week when he said he was “not a big fan of the idea” of restarting the season in a bubble — showed up for his team’s flight in what appeared to be a full hazmat suit.
“Just left the crib to head to the bubble... Hated to leave the #JamesGang,” James wrote on Twitter.
Another last-day arrival at the Disney campus were the reigning NBA champions the Toronto Raptors, who boarded buses for the two-hour drive from Naples, Florida, where they have been training at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, for the trip to the bubble.
Exhibition games are to begin on July 22. Games are to restart again for real on July 30.
“It just felt good to be back on the floor,” said Brooklyn interim coach Jacque Vaughn, who took over for Kenny Atkinson less than a week before the March 11 suspension of the season because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I think that was the most exciting thing. We got a little conditioning underneath us. Didn’t go too hard after the quarantine, wanted to get guys to just run up and down a little bit and feel the ball again.”
Teams, for the most part, had to wait two days after arriving before they could get on the practice floor. Many players have passed the time with video games; Miami center Meyers Leonard, with the Heat not practicing for the first time until yesterday, has been giving fans glimpses of everything from his gaming setup to his room service order for his first dinner at Disney — replete with lobster bisque, a burger, chicken strips and some Coors Light to wash it all down.
The food has been a big talking point so far, especially after a handful of players turned to social media to share what got portrayed as less-than-superb meals during the brief quarantine period.
“For the most part, everything has been pretty good in my opinion,” Nets guard Joe Harris said. “They’ve done a good job taking care of us and making sure to accommodate us in every area as much as possible.”
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