Charles Barkley laid out a possible ugly scenario for the NBA postseason if it is played this summer amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Hall of Famer believes that teams should be eliminated from the playoffs if one of their players tests positive for the coronavirus.
“I think the one thing we’ve to go do is, how are we going to handle if one of our players gets infected,” Barkley told ESPN’s The Paul Finebaum Show on Monday. “That to me is the tricky part. You can’t stop the playoffs. I think a team is just going to have to forfeit a series if any of their players, not even their best player, gets the virus. You’re going to have to sequester the entire team, and they are going to have to forfeit a round of the playoffs.”
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“It would be devastating for us in the NBA if the Milwaukee Bucks got taken out, even if it’s a guy who just is sitting on the bench,” Barkley added. “You would have to take the whole Milwaukee Bucks team and the great player Giannis [Antetokounmpo] — they would lose in the first round of the playoffs. This stuff is just uncharted waters. We’re going to have to learn as we go.”
Barkley added that both the nature of the game and the prospective living quarters for the players could put them at risk of infection.
“Big basketball players pushing on each other in the lane, fighting for rebounds and post position — there’s no way they can social distance,” Barkley said. “They say they’re going to put them in a hotel for two or three months. Are the maids going to be in the hotel for two or three months? The maids are going to go home every day. What about the people in room service? They’re going to go home every day. So it’s just a lot of unanswered questions.”
Barkley said that he does believe the suspended NBA season is to have a conclusion, citing knowledge obtained from his bosses at Turner Sports.
“[The NBA is] gonna make a decision in the next week,” Barkley told Finebaum, according to thescore.com. “I’m 100 percent sure we’re going to play. I know my friends in Major League Baseball are going to play. I know that the hockey league is going to play. I think the pro football and the college football, they have to sit back and see how it goes for us.”
“I do know this, talking to my bosses at Turner: We’re going to play basketball,” Barkley said. “It’s gonna be in Florida and [Las] Vegas, or just Florida.”
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