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16 NBA players test positive for coronavirus as season restart nears

Tests are continuing for all 22 NBA teams that will be participating in the season restart at the Walt Disney World campus in Florida next month.

The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association say 16 players tested positive for coronavirus in the first wave of mandatory tests done in preparation for the restart of the season.

Those 16 players were part of a pool of 302 tested on Tuesday. Tests are continuing for all 22 teams that will be participating in the restart at the Disney campus near Orlando, Florida, next month. The player names were not disclosed; some, such as Malcolm Brogdon of Indiana and Sacramento teammates Jabari Parker and Alex Len have publicly acknowledged they have recently tested positive.

That was a 5.3% rate of positive tests league-wide. The league did not announce results of testing on staffers and other members of team travel parties, all of whom are also part of the mandatory testing program.

Credit: AP/AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli
Sacramento Kings forward Jabari Parker during the first quarter of an NBA basketball game against the Memphis Grizzlies in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 20, 2020. The Kings won 129-125. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

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The league and the union say that “any player who tested positive will remain in self-isolation until he satisfies public health protocols for discontinuing isolation and has been cleared by a physician.”

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