RLANDO — The NBA announced Wednesday that when the league resumes its season July 30, it will do so with all the players fully encased within individual plastic bubbles, with an official league release specifically referencing the disease-prevention methods “pioneered by the 2001 documentary film Bubble Boy.”
To compensate for the increased difficulty posed by these circumstances, the league will add a seven-foot-wide second basket into which players can score themselves from either 2-point or 3-point range.
“Our league continues taking the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic seriously, which is why we’re taking this crucial step for player safety,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said. “Enclosed in these bubbles, they can cough, sneeze, spit, and even pee, all without any of these potentially infectious bodily fluids coming into contact with any other players.”
Silver added that some players were wondering how they could possibly dribble, pass, shoot, or do pretty much anything else with a basketball while enclosed in a bubble with only their heavily protected arms and legs sticking out, but he expressed faith that they would overcome those obstacles with the help of the complementary rule changes.
“These are the greatest basketball players in the world, and we’re going to give them every opportunity to figure it out,” Silver said. “But even if they can’t, it should be pretty fucking funny to watch.”
