Damian Lillard said his goodbyes to his family as he prepared to join the rest of his Portland Trail Blazers teammates on the road to the Walt Disney World bubble.
The point guard's Instagram caption said it all, as he compared the closed confines of the NBA bubble to a prison bid:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CCbi4qTAeFS/
The Blazers star was not alone. Terms like “confined” and “sequestered” were thrown around as soon as the prospect of an NBA bubble became palpable, as players would have to be without their families until after the first round of the playoffs. That's something many viewed as excessive, considering that could be as long as a couple of months without them.
Teams will have three weeks to practice and get back to full form as part of Training Camp 2.0 and will play in eight regular-season games to finish out the 2019-20 campaign and determine the seeding. That process alone can be more than five weeks.
If players make it past the first round, they would have waited at least seven weeks before seeing their families in person again.
While it could feel like the final goodbye before doing a stint in prison, this is actually far from it. The NBA has gone above and beyond to make this uncomfortable process as good as can be for the players.
Besides the numerous activities within the bubble, players are being provided with a food delivery service, six different barbers, and daily testing to ensure they remain COVID-19 free. That's a hell of a lot better than sitting behind bars for what could be much longer than just a few months.
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