The NBA has been decimated by COVID-19 cases in December, with stars and role players alike across the league testing positive. This has thrown a spanner into the works as the regular season continues with games every day.
One of the solutions has been signing players to 10-day contracts. These players have gotten a chance to show the league that they’re worth a contract and the NBA hasn’t had to stop any basketball from being played.
However, in certain cases, the league has made exceptions to postpone games, something they did for the Miami Heat-San Antonio Spurs clash on Wednesday. This luxury has not been afforded to other teams and Atlanta Hawks star Trae Young seems to have taken exception to that.
Young questioned the NBA for allowing some games to be postponed while others had to simply go on after signing players to 10-day hardship deals. His statement was shared on Twitter by Hawks beat reporter Chris Kirschner.
Trae Young on his reaction to seeing the Miami-San Antonio game postponed today while the Hawks continue playing with most of their team out and mostly filled with 10-day hardship exception signings. pic.twitter.com/JW9LHjgbEL
— Chris Kirschner (@ChrisKirschner) December 30, 2021
“I was just confused. We had like four guys fly in last night just to make the roster and play today. We were able to find a way.
“I don’t know if it’s on the league or on our part to complain and be forceful with what’s going on.
“Other teams have gotten games postponed and are waiting on guys to get back. We have, really, three guys who play big minutes for our team, when you include (Skylar Mays), we have four guys. It’s kind of crazy.”
The Atlanta Hawks played on Wednesday with a number of players out. They were missing key pieces like John Collins, Bogdan Bogdanovic and Danilo Gallinari while playing the likes of Lance Stephenson and Cat Barber. Predictably, they lost 131-117 against the Chicago Bulls.
The Heat game was postponed because Miami had 12 players out and couldn’t field a rotation of 8 players, which forced the league to reschedule the game. It remains to be seen if any other games will be postponed but it’s unlikely that the league will be keen to do it.
