Report: Hurdles to NBA's Quarantined Playoffs Are 'Insurmountable'

Houston Methodist disease specialist Dr. Richard Harris: "I’m not sure any of this is perfectly safe."

The NBA is getting creative as it assesses potential avenues for a return to play, with the idea of a quarantined playoffs reportedly gaining steam.

The league could potentially move all games to Las Vegas for the remainder of the season, holding a quarantined playoffs at the city's Summer League arenas and surrounding facilities. But some consider the quarantine playoffs to be a shaky idea.

“I’m not sure any of this is perfectly safe," Houston Methodist disease specialist Dr. Richard Harris told the Houston's Chronicle's Jonathan Feigen. "The problem is there will be so many people that are going to pop up from time to time with COVID, there’s going to be little outbreaks here, little outbreaks there."

Harris noted his skepticism that the NBA could completely avoid COVID-19, even in a quarantined environment. And as the United States battles the coronavirus epidemic, it may be difficult to divert a significant pool of resources in order to continue play.

“You’re catching the medical field at a bad time,” Harris told Feigen. “We’re just swamped with patients on the ventilator struggling for life. And we don’t know when the horizon is. Everyone sort of thinks the next two weeks will be the worst and then everything will be better. That may be true. But that doesn’t mean four months from now we won’t see cases of COVID here in Houston and around the world.”

All European basketball leagues have suspended or already canceled their respective seasons, while the Chinese Basketball Association stalled in its attempt to restart play at the start of April. Perhaps the NBA will resume games at some point in the summer, but for now, there is little guarantee of a quarantined playoffs.