On March 11th, 2020, the NBA (National Basketball Association) world as we know it came to a halt when NBA commissioner Adam Silver decided to postpone the NBA season after former NBA defensive player of the year, Rudy Gobert, tested positive for COVID-19. The NBA season was in jeopardy just like that leaving fans to wonder if they would just cancel the season altogether, but Silver had other ideas in mind. 

He came up with an intricate way to make sure the season could continue. After 141 long days without NBA basketball, which is longer than the normal NBA offseason, the season made a return with a lot of precaution. Twenty-two teams, nine from the Eastern Conference and twelve from the Western Conference, were invited to stay at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Players and coaches stay at hotels in the resort but are not allowed to have guests in their rooms. There are certain areas around Disney where players can roam freely, but if they leave the bubble for any reason they have to quarantine themselves for up to 14 days. So far since starting this bubble system there have been zero positive cases inside the bubble. 

Overall during the COVID-19 pandemic, the NBA has been the best out of sports leagues at maintaining safety and protocol for its players and staff. They were the first to postpone their season when the pandemic first started and also the first major sports league to resume. The NBA not only resumed first, but they set the example for the rest of the sports world to handle this unique situation we are all trying to get used to. Comparing the NBA to the MLB (Major League Baseball) where the MLB has already had 29 players test positive in the first week and almost a third of all teams have had games canceled due to the virus. That begs the question why do not other major sports leagues also do the bubble style like the NBA?

For starters, it would not be as easy for other leagues to do the bubble like the NBA has. The NBA is in an almost perfect situation for this bubble as they were nearing the end of their season and they do not have many players on each roster. This is why it would be hard and almost near impossible for leagues like the NFL (National Football League) and MLB to be able to do this as their rosters are substantially larger than those in the NBA and their seasons are just getting underway. It would be too much of a financial issue for these leagues to do something like this and it looks like so far these leagues are opting not to do a bubble type style and are willing to take the risk of the spread of COVID-19. So while the other leagues will struggle to deal with this ongoing virus the NBA will continue to have the best protocol and safety for its players and will watch and laugh from inside of their bubble.