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Kevin Love Reveals What It Looks Like For NBA Players Who’ve Returned To Practice Facilities

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BSO – “Our facility has been really odd because we have to do 1 guy to a basket and we have 4 main baskets at our facility, and everybody is in masks and gloves. It’s really odd to have a rebounder in a mask, in these latex gloves, throwing passes and throwing you a ball. You almost have to put that out of your mind and act like it’s not even there.”

For those of you who are wondering, yes Kevin did confirm the organization is disinfecting the equipment thoroughly, while maintaining social distancing.

In the clip above from Yahoo’s upcoming “Reset Your Mindset At Home” livestream on May 20, Love also talks about the differences between how players and staffers as they actually practice:

“The players are the only people not shooting with the gloves on. It’s the coaching staff, it’s the training staff, it’s anybody else in the arena. But we are constantly making sure that we’re disinfecting, constantly washing our hands, and just continuing to distance each other in the right way. So we’re taking all the necessary precautions.”

As other sports leagues’ stars, most notably the Tampa Bay Rays’ Blake Snell, have vocalized some financial and health concerns about coming back, Love seems interested to get back to competition no matter how odd the scenario may be.

“Basketball, I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like getting back and playing with no fans or fans scattered out through the arena. It’s just going to be really odd to see how sports slowly start to roll themselves out. But I think it’s needed. It’s just such a way to, even for us, to get out of our own heads and just go and compete.”

Related

As time goes on, it seems like amongst the non-UFC sports leagues, the NBA has been the most motivated on the ownership and players’ sides to get games off the ground. Kevin Love’s answers here may not be exactly in line with every player in the league, especially for guys on teams with no hopes to make the playoffs. But it’s encouraging to hear a player of note talk about his attempts to work through the adverse conditions as we all hopefully get back to the hardwood sometime this summer.

I think this calls for a ceremonial spin of John Tesh’s NBA on NBC classic “Roundball Rock:”

If that Big Band spin on the classic doesn’t get your blood pumping for some NBA basketball, I don’t know what will.

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