ORLANDO – Nearly three months have passed since NBA teams, including the Orlando Magic, last played a game or prepared for one. The league had to suspend the season on March 11 due to the global pandemic, preventing teams from gathering to watch film, run drills, review scouting reports and practice the X’s and O’s.
That is all expected to change soon, as the NBA announced this week a plan to resume the 2019-20 season at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex with games beginning on July 31. Training camps are scheduled to start on June 30 in each of the 22 participating teams’ local markets before they each make their way to Orlando.
The Magic – even though they’ve been physically separated this whole time – have stayed connected through online meetings. Players were able to virtually work with the team’s trainers to stay fit and the coaches and front office staff were in constant communication with each other on conference calls to remain prepared for whenever the season would resume.
When given the green light to return to Amway Center for voluntary individual workouts a couple weeks ago, the Magic’s players in town wasted no time getting back in the gym. Since then, they’ve all been working on their craft, building their bodies back up and getting themselves mentally and physically ready for the challenges that lie ahead.
Each team at Disney will play in eight “seeding” games that will count toward the current standings. The Magic’s goal is to leapfrog the Brooklyn Nets, who at the moment are a half-game ahead of Orlando for the No. 7 seed. Not only would securing the seventh spot prevent the East’s heavily-favored Milwaukee Bucks from being Orlando’s opponent in the first round, the Magic would also evade a potential play-in series for the eighth and final postseason spot.
Returning to the court is exciting in and of itself for the Magic. But what’s inspiring them even more is the opportunity to use this platform as a way to lift the country back up and initiate substantial change on social and racial injustices.
Both Magic CEO Alex Martins and team President of Basketball Operations Jeff Weltman were on two different radio programs on Friday afternoon to talk about the resumption of the season, how the Magic and the rest of the NBA plan to inspire others while at Disney, and the work the organization has put in while social distancing during the pandemic. Below are pieces of the transcripts from the two conversations.
Martins on ESPN 580 Orlando with Scott Anez
On Planned Restart of Season
MARTINS: “The vote yesterday is encouraging. It is really just the first two minutes of a long game, quite frankly. As we’ve gone through this pandemic, things change on a daily and weekly basis and as we go through this process, the health and safety of our players, our coaches, our staff, our fans are first and foremost. Although we have a plan in place and we still are working through a lot of the specific protocols and details, our hope is that by the end of July NBA basketball will return and hopefully by that time this pandemic will have calmed down and we’ll be able to play at Walt Disney World at the Wide World of Sports in a safe and competitive environment.”
On Whether Magic Helped NBA Choose Disney
MARTINS: “Disney is one of our greatest partners. You can’t say more about a partner than to put their brand on your jersey in our business. Yes, we did encourage. I had several conversations with the commissioner. I had several conversations with his key deputies (and told them) that in my opinion if there was ever to be a safe place for our players, coaches and staff to play in a campus community, that would be Walt Disney World. Not only the happiest place on earth, I think it’s one of the safest places on earth. I encouraged them early on in the process to seriously consider it. We had been considering no less than a half dozen different possible locations. But this is a huge undertaking. When you talk about keeping everybody safe in a controlled environment so that they are not exposed to a large number of people who may be exposed to this virus, it’s a challenging situation. And there are not many places in the country I think where you can do it. And in my opinion there was no place better than Walt Disney Word to do it because of what we know and our partnership with them. Even prior to coronavirus, the approach they took to cleanliness, hygiene, customer service and safety. Safety is their No. 1 priority.”
On Using Platform to Initiate Change
MARTINS: “What’s happened in our country in the last couple of weeks outside of this pandemic with the racial injustice and social injustice that has taken place once again, and the criminal injustice that has taken place…We as a league have committed as recently as a long conversation during the board of governors meeting yesterday to utilize this comeback and restart in the NBA here in Orlando and at Walt Disney World as a platform to try and truly initiate change. We’re not talking about just having conversations. We’re talking about substantially taking a leadership role in changing the racial injustice in our country. This is going to be the forum for us to do that and I think as we get restarted you are going to see our league, our players, our owners, our coaches, etc. take a significant role to find ways to initiate substantial, long-term and permanent change to these injustices in our country. We’re committed to do that and that’s going to be a big part of our platform as we restart again here in Orlando at Walt Disney World.”
On How NBA Can Lift Country
MARTINS: “It will be different this time around without a doubt because of the seriousness of loss of lives and injustice to our friends in our communities. We’re all human beings and we all need to treat each other with compassion, respect and love. But, in doing that, sports combined with action, policy and true sustainable change can lift us up. The playing of our games will be part of that process. I’m excited about it. We want to get back to playing games again.”
Weltman on 96.9 The Game with Brandon Kravitz
On Excitement of Season Resuming
WELTMAN: “We’ve spent a lot of time planning. We’ve spent a lot of time discussing different scenarios, different eventualities and the fact that we’re going to be playing obviously makes all of us happy across the league and obviously within our group. We were playing some of our best basketball of the season when we stopped and we’re looking forward to the challenge of trying to pick up where we left off.”
On Number of Virtual Meetings While Social Distancing
WELTMAN: “It would take me too long to figure out (laughing). Many meetings every day. It’s actually been busier throughout this whole hiatus than it typically would otherwise have been. When you think about all the internal and external meetings and plans and messaging that you have to do to kind of keep it together. It’s been a very hectic time. And obviously, from an operations standpoint, we’ve got to prepare for the draft and all the other eventualities of the postseason. It’s been a very hectic time, but obviously we feel very confident in leadership from the league that they would do everything they could to figure out a way to safely resume the season. So here we go. We’re ready.”
On Most Challenging Part of Shutdown
WELTMAN: “It’s such a multilayered approach to try and keep everybody attached, keep everybody working, mentally prepared. We all go through a series of emotions, some guys more than others. Just to kind of keep ourselves united and attached with our goal in mind. There is just a lot to keep our eye on. A lot of people make a huge difference within our organization, starting with our players and our coaches, and all of our support staff. While we’re unable to be together and be in the same room to keep everyone attached, that’s been the biggest challenge and I think our guys have done an amazing job.”
On Magic Players’ Health & Readiness
WELTMAN: “They’ve done an amazing job. I don’t know if there is a team in the league that has had more players stay in market and even the couple that have had to go back and forth have done an amazing job staying attached to their programs and their coaches and, I’ve said before, to each other. We, meaning the organization starting with the players and coaches, have really strived to go the extra mile to keep the unity, keep the togetherness, keep the comradery in place that will allow our players to be successful when we resume. They are all really excited. They are in as good a shape as you can be. Obviously, when you’re not playing basketball, you’re not going to be in basketball shape. But they’ve all done an excellent job doing whatever they could do and I think they are really excited to get back in the gym and start working.”
On Jonathan Isaac
WELTMAN: “Nothing’s changed and nothing will ever change with the way that we’re going to approach injuries. Jonathan’s timetable will kind of dictate itself as his rehab unfolds and we’ll see how he responds to his treatment. He’s ramping up his workload. That being said, there’s a difference between healthy and being ready to play basketball and Jonathan hasn’t played since January 1. We’re not going to throw him out there just because his knee is healthy if it indeed would have a chance to be healthy by then. We’re not counting on Jonathan being a part of this postseason and we’re just going to proceed as we were before the hiatus began. We don’t expect him to be back and with that we’re going to prepare the same way before the hiatus began.”