SAN ANTONIO — The process of returning to San Antonio and getting ready for the resumption of the NBA season elicited a palpable physiological reaction in Spurs guard DeMar DeRozan.
“It brought a couple of tears to my eyes,” DeRozan said.
Yes, the prospect of getting back on the court after a three-month NBA shutdown is emotional for DeRozan.
But what really brought on the waterworks was the COVID-19 test he and the rest of his teammates had to endure before being cleared to work out.
It involved a pipe cleaner-type swab jabbed deep inside the nasal cavity.
“The nose test is kind of tricky,” DeRozan said.
For the Spurs, everything gets trickier on the road to the planned July 31 restart in Orlando, Fla.
The team returned to the practice court this week, sort of. Workouts at the club’s practice facility were mandatory, but limited to individual sessions with a reduced number of players in the gym at one time under NBA protocols.
Teams will not be allowed to begin five-on-five workouts until arriving in a single site “bubble” at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports next week.
To a player such as DeRozan, who is in his 11th NBA season, this week has marked the beginning of a “training camp” like no other.
“Everything has been so out of the ordinary with everyday life,” DeRozan said in the Zoom conference with reporters that served as post-practice media availability Thursday. “Coming in the gym, getting back, getting a feel for it has been a challenge.”
DeRozan spent much of his time since the NBA’s March 11 shutdown at home in Los Angeles. He returned to San Antonio early last week.
This week marked his first in-person interaction with many Spurs teammates in months.
Even that was something of a solitary experience for DeRozan, given the practice site’s limited capacity.
“You’re used to coming into the gym and seeing your teammates,” DeRozan said. “That’s kind of your sanctuary where you can laugh, joke, compete with your teammates. Now you’ve got to get tested before you come into the gym, limited people in the gym, you may see only two to three other team-mates in the gym. It’s been a challenge.”
Once on the floor in Orlando, the Spurs face a dogfight to qualify for the playoffs for the 23rd consecutive season.
At 27-36 and in 12th place in the Western Conference, the Spurs need to force their way into ninth place - and within four games of the No. 8 slot - in order to earn a play-in opportunity.
They will have eight games with which to make that run, beginning July 31 against Sacramento.
“Obviously, we’re in a very tight race, and there’s only a few games,” said center Jakob Poeltl, who is likely to slide into the Spurs’ starting lineup with LaMarcus Aldridge sidelined following shoulder surgery. “I don’t think it’s going to allow us to lose a lot of games.”
It seems a lifetime ago, but the Spurs believe they were getting into a groove at the time the season was paused.
On March 10, the Spurs smashed Dallas 119-109 for their third victory in four games, all against playoff-caliber opponents.
A day later, the NBA suspended the season after Utah’s Rudy Gobert tested positive for novel coronavirus.
“I felt like that was a big win for us,” DeRozan said of beating the Mavericks. “Our confidence had shifted. The discussion we had after that game was, ‘Let’s keep going. Let’s keep building off this.’ I feel like everybody’s confidence was at an all-time high. All of a sudden, everything came to a stop.”
Whether the Spurs can regain whatever momentum they thought they had built upon arrival in Orlando remains to be seen.
Likely, each of the 22 teams entering the Orlando bubble will find momentum elusive.
“Coming back is a second chance for everybody,” DeRozan said. “It sucks we couldn’t play out the final 20 games to be able to really give ourselves a chance. This format is kind of a tricky situation. You’ve got to hope for other things to go wrong (for other teams), and we’ve got to go out there and be perfect.”
Simply getting all the participating teams on the court in Orlando seems like a feat enough.
Positive cases of coronavirus continue to spike in central Florida, where the NBA is planning to set up shop until mid-October.
The league is confident its safety protocols — which include every-other-day testing for players and staff — will help make the NBA campus safer than the outside world.
Players say they understand the risk involved in the restart.
“It’s a new situation for everybody,” Poeltl said. “We’re going into this not really knowing what to expect. There’s always a little bit of risk when playing basketball. There’s always the chance you could get hurt. With the precautions the NBA has taken, hopefully it’s a minor risk for us.”
As Poeltl was speaking with reporters in his Zoom call Thursday, masked workers behind him were busy sanitizing the Spurs’ practice gym for the next arrival of players to work out.
For players, it served as another reminder of how out of the ordinary their jobs have become.
As if a nasal swab up the nose didn’t do the trick.
“I just tell guys on my team, we’ve got to take things day by day,” DeRozan said. “It becomes overwhelming and frustrating at times, when you try to look at the whole spectrum of things and figure it out. We don’t know what it’s going to bring. We’ve got to take it day by day, try to be safe, and figure it out in the process.”
jmcdonald
@express-news.net
Twitter:@JMcDonald_SAEN
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