At long last, the Hawks have an answer for what kind of team activity they’ll be permitted to conduct this offseason, after their regular season was cut short by 15 games because of the coronavirus and they were one of eight teams not invited to the season’s restart in Orlando.
The NBA and the NBA Players Association came to an agreement, the league announced Tuesday night, for those eight teams to do voluntary group workouts at their team facilities from Sept. 14-Oct. 6 “while residing in a campus-like environment under controlled conditions,” according to a news release. The bubble, or campus environment, will consist of the practice facility and private living accommodations for players and staff, who have to remain on the campus to continue participating in group activities.
According to the league, the agreement includes “comprehensive health and safety protocols that will govern the program for the benefit of all participating players, coaches and other team staff.”
The first phase of the workouts (Sept. 14-20) will consist of voluntary individual workouts and daily COVID-19 testing for all players and staff who intend to participate in the group workouts to come. The second phase will continue that daily COVID-19 testing and will consist of group training activity, whether that’s practices, scrimmaging, skill or conditioning work.
The eight teams may include up to five players who are not under an NBA contract, but who “were under an NBA G League contract and assigned to the team’s G League affiliate during the 2019-20 season.”
This likely will be advantageous for young teams such as the Hawks, who want their young players to continue developing and get reps as a team.
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