Roughly 150 NBA players were in Miami during All-Star Weekend, according to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst.
On his Hoop Collective Podcast that dropped today, Windhorst — joined by Marc Spears and Andrew Lopez — reported that not only were around 150 players in Miami but that the NBA has a verifiable tally due to testing records.
“Last I heard, there were around 150 players who were planning to be in Miami this past weekend. The reason the NBA knows is because the players have to have COVID tests while they’re there, and they had to sign up for them,” Windhorst said. “So the NBA had an accurate count of how many, and I was told — this was two days ago, maybe it’s grown — I was told in the neighborhood of 150 players in Miami over the weekend.”
With the NBA’s 30 teams carrying 15 players and two two-way contracts apiece, there are roughly 510 players in the league. The gathering in Miami, if Windhorst’s figures are accurate, represents nearly a third of that total.
Windhorst went on to add that he thinks the testing site was at the Miami Heat’s facility, but he was unsure. He ultimately reported on the scheduling process the players went through for testing.
“They had to give the players a schedule. It was drive-through, and they had to have multiple lanes, and they had to give the players a schedule,” he added regarding the process of getting COVID tests; otherwise, they couldn’t handle the crush.
According to Windhorst, a number of players also flew to Los Angeles on Sunday night.
“I was checking the private jet flights out of Atlanta late Sunday night, and there was quite a few headed to L.A. because that’s where a lot of players go,” he said before noting there was a flight to Milwaukee, a flight to Columbus, Ohio, multiple flights to New York, one to Dallas, and one to Phoenix.
“And then a whole bunch of flights down to Miami for the guys who wanted to join their brethren down there,” Windhorst punctuated.
Of course, the potential severity of the situation won’t be discovered immediately, but the excess Miami visits also comes days after a reported seven players were positive for COVID in a recent round of testing.
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