Illawarra Hawks coach Brian Goorjian has provided an insight into how the NBL season might operate under new COVID-19 guidelines, explaining how it may run similarly to the NBA’s procedure when dealing with positive cases.
The NBA’s COVID-19 protocol, which requires players who test positive to isolate for 10 days while close contacts get tested, allows the games to go ahead with minimal disruption, vastly different to Cricket Australia’s protocol, which saw an entire Sheffield Shield match rescheduled for one player who tested positive.
“(There will be) more (of an) NBA style, you get COVID, go to your room, and when you (test negative) come back in. If somebody else gets it, go to your room, stay in your room,” Goorjian told SEN's Breakfast with Vossy.
“This thing is going to get passed around and you’re going to have to deal with it… I think the NBL is coming to grips with that, I think it’s going down that path now.
“I think change is in progress.”
The legendary coach anticipates the reaction to dealing with the updated protocols will determine team success, especially with each state in the country requiring different procedures for entry and exit.
“The complication is, here, as opposed to the (United) States, that every state here has different rules, and the travelling and how you get around is making this competition difficult,” he added.
“Dealing with COVID in this current climate is a major piece in how your team is going to go.”
The NBL season gets underway on Friday night with the Jackjumpers and Bullets facing off, before Goorjian’s Hawks meet the 36ers in Adelaide on Sunday.
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