Quick thoughts on how to run it: first get a couple trainers and assistant coaches for each team in and quarantine them for a week, then start bringing in the players, maybe 3 or 4 at a time, young guys first, then a week later vets. Do a one week quarantine for each group. Try to keep players separate from other groups until every group has done a 2 week quarantine. Might have a team together within a month. Working out and practicing. If no one is sick within that month then you have NBA players and coaches and trainers and refs able to interact and play games.
You keep all those team folks away from the food servers and room cleaners and other staff as much as possible. All those staff people wear masks and try to keep distance. Probably want to restrict teams to 12 players instead of 15. That reduces things by almost 100 people. Those 3 end-of-the-bench players can still get their full salary.
Not sure how many people we're talking.
12 players. Say just 3 coaches. 3 trainers. 2 med staff. Whatever else I'm forgetting. 2 support staff. Would be 20 people per team x 30 = 600.
A dozen refs -- four crews of 3.
Camera people and technicians. Announcers.
Whatever else I'm forgetting.
I guess you try to hold the total under 800 people, with a max of 1,000.
Most of the support staff would be ESPN/Disney employees.
Not sure if they are talking about finishing the season or heading straight to playoffs. Playoffs make more sense to me, since the last 1/3 of the season isn't terribly meaningful. And with playoffs, you get two teams matched up for a series of games, so you limit contact across all 30 teams.
Maybe can play an abbreviated schedule. Say ten reg season games to get everyone back in shape for the playoffs. Since everyone is in one spot, you can rejig the schedule so teams play a limited number of opponents, if you want. might as well keep conferecnes separate during any reg season games, since the playoffs will do that anyway.
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