Shameka Nixon/Pelicans Contributor 

New Orleans– The New Orleans Pelicans VP of Basketball Operations David Griffin delivered some tough news on Tuesday. Griffin sited that 3 Pelican players tested positive for Covid 19, but chose not to identify them due to HIPAA privacy rules . The Pelicans and the NBA are gearing up to complete the season starting on July the 30th. The team received the positive tests results last week and have already isolated the players, were they”ll be test daily.

The Pelicans VP also said Tuesday “To this point, we have had positive tests,” Griffin said. “From a HIPAA standpoint, I’m not going to talk about any of those individuals. We’ve had multiple players test positive. The league has a system in place that was designed to catch these cases. That system worked, and we’re just going to deal with it the best we can moving forward. From a basketball standpoint, I think you’re going to see COVID have an enormous impact on teams, and even some of the teams that went into the bubble as a playoff seed. You’ve seen that Brooklyn has been really damaged by the COVID situation. So again, this is something where we’re all at the mercy of the same enemy.”

The New Orleans Pelicans sit 3.5 games behind the Memphis Grizzlies who are currently the eighth seed. The Pel’s have several difficult match ups to overcome just to get in position to challenge for a playoff spot. Griffin emphasis the difficulty of losing players due to the virus during season play saying: “Unfortunately, as a play-in team, we’re sort of disproportionately penalized if we have a COVID case because by the time you get players back, you may already be done, and your competitive advantage may be gone,” Griffin said. “So, in our situation, COVID is going to play a much bigger role than it will for an established playoff team. We’re playing two really important playoffs teams to start. We had an 18-game cushion before [the season was suspended]. We only have eight [now].”

New Orleans Pelicans Coach Alvin Gentry is yet to determine if he will be there with the team in Orlando. As it stands currently the NBA announced that 16 players tested positive for COVID-19 among the 22 teams selected to play at Walt Disney World. This is a developing story please subscribe and stay tuned for more updates.

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