Pelicans have three players test positive⁠—report

The NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans have had three players test positive for COVID-19 while three members of the Denver Nuggets organization also contracted the virus, according to ESPN reports Tuesday.

David Griffin, the Pelicans’ executive vice president of basketball operations, said three players have tested positive but would not identify them.

The players are self-isolating and being tested daily, hoping to return to the club following two days of negative tests.

The Nuggets have closed their practice facility after members of their planned 35-person delegation to the season restart bubble tested positive for COVID-19.

The Nuggets shut down the facility on Saturday after two people from among the players, staff and coaches tested positive for the coronavirus and another person has tested positive since then, according to the report, which cited unnamed sources.

The club will reopen the facility based on the results of ongoing testing for workouts under COVID-19 safety guidelines before the team departs for Orlando on July 7.

Denver All-Star center Nikola Jokic tested positive in Serbia, sources told ESPN, and Nuggets coach Michael Malone told a Denver television station that he had contracted the virus in March but didn’t know until he was tested for antibodies in May.

At 43-22, the Nuggets were third in the Western Conference behind the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers when the season was shut down March 11 after Utah’s Rudy Gobert tested positive for coronavirus.

Players began reporting to facilities last Tuesday to start testing protocols ahead of going to Orlando for the resumption of the campaign starting July 30.

The Nuggets closure news came on the same day the Brooklyn Nets reopened their facility after positive tests by Spencer Dinwiddie and DeAndre Jordan.