The Toronto Raptors are one of the twenty-two teams in the league who have access to their practice facility. Today was the first day, but it was quite unusual.
Usually, when you have a practice, it is filled with players, coaches, and basketballs. In this particular case for the Toronto Raptors, it was filled with one player, one assistant coach, and only two basketballs. With Adam Silver revealing he feels confident that a return might happen and most practice facilities are opening up, the time for players to return to training is starting now.
Today it was Malcolm Miller and Toronto Raptors assistant coach Brittni Donaldson who were allowed into the facility.
As told from both of them on a conference call with TSN, people who entered the facility had their temperature taken beforehand. They are usually allowed four on the court from what the NBA announced this week, but the Toronto Raptors have one player at a time for now. They are allowed to train for one hour, then the whole court and the basketball are wiped clean and disinfected.
It will be interesting to see how things will shape up. Eventually and if the season resumes, the whole team will have to train together, and the precautions currently being taken are very strict ones. The assistant coach had to keep a distance from Malcolm Miller in practice, that can’t happen when they are all training together. In just how much time do these one or four-man workouts become full team workouts? We don’t know for now but do hope that it is soon at least.
The Toronto Raptors will be trying to repeat in a season where it didn’t seem possible after Kawhi’s departure. It’ll be sad if we would have to wait until next year to see them defend their title.
Until then we can only hope that the NBA takes the right precautions and that all the players and staff are safe.