It took the PBA a tough time before finally getting the go signal.
Coach Norman Black gladly called it the light at the end of the tunnel.
Really nice and good to be back into action, Black swooned.
Fine, but it’s not (yet) the resumption of the stalled 45th PBA season that has been allowed.
PBA teams have been given the opening to start training, before hopefully plunging into big-time action later.
————————PBA commissioner Willie Marcial was profuse with thanks for the break.
“Nagpapasalamat po ang PBA sa government natin at sa IATF (Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases)sa pagkakataon na ibinigay sa atin po,” Marcial stated in a text message.
Team training in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic will be a supreme test. There has been no tightrope act of this sort in Philippine basketball before.
There’s hovering uncertainty as the PBA sets to take a dangerous path in the midst of the coronavirus scare.
————————Making it doubly daunting for the PBA is the absence of a facility that could exclusively host and provide the bubble quarantine method adopted by the NBA in the United States.
Each and every PBA player will be subjected to severe discipline, restrictions and trial, not unlike living out prisoners.
The PBA media bureau earlier relayed that players will be tracked and covered through close-circuit method.
There should be no outside contact; it will mostly be home-car-venue-car-home through the training period expected to commence late this month.
————————Meanwhile, one report said the NBA players union has made sure there will be expert support to address the mental health and wellness of its players who will be quartered for months in a Disneyland complex in Orlando, Florida.
Unlike in the NBA, Filipino basketball pros will not be separated for months from friends and family.
How to stay safe, healthy (and sane) as PBA players soldier through training at a point when there’s the threat of the enhanced community quarantine being reimposed in Metro Manila, occupies countless fans out in the street.
The PBA, needless to say, will need all the luck in the world, and there are enough supporters wishing the league to make it through the untried path in one healthy piece.
PBA players and officials, in trying to reignite the morale of the public, can count among our fearless health front-liners. INQ