The NBA recently revealed the rules to allow visitors in the bubble. This is good news knowing that some players will be able to bring in their families but there are plenty of stars that don’t have established relationships and could use this time to bring a female friend to spend some quality time in the bubble. This has been a topic of discussion around the league as soon as they announced their bubble plans.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported the NBA is requiring players to provide proof of “long-standing relationships” with non-family members who are on the entrance list. They won’t allow any person “known by the player only through social media or an intermediary,” as per Woj.
According to the Associated Press, guests are to be family members, “longtime close personal friends with whom a player has an established, pre-existing, and known personal relationship,” private security staff and established family childcare providers.
Not everybody is happy with these rules, including ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, who made the case for players to receive visitors in the bubble, even if they aren’t close friends or people they have known for years. On Thursday’s edition of First Take, Smith said:
“I think they’re crossing the line. I mean, first of all, who are you to decide what is significant to one person? You don’t know, you don’t know who that person is, you don’t know what matters to them. I think that you can limit it to one person, but that one person — they should decide who is that significance to them, you don’t get to determine that, you could have met somebody a month ago that means more to you than somebody you’ve known for years. We don’t know that, so I think that they need to be careful about the kind of restriction but I am proud of them for making this move”.
I think they are crossing the line with the bubble visitor restrictions! pic.twitter.com/JhMGLwF3ZE
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) August 13, 2020
Well, Stephen A. is right with his claims. Players need to get loose and they’re known for shooting their shot on social media, so it wouldn’t be crazy if they decide to invite somebody they met through Instagram or Twitter. It’s unclear if the league will change any of these restrictions but the picture doesn’t look good for players who could have met a person of interest in recent weeks.
