NBA players – generally young and healthy – mostly face reduced risk (not no risk) of developing serious symptoms due to coronavirus.
But family and friends are still susceptible.
Pacers center Myles Turner on C.J. McCollum’s podcast:
My dad actually got it. He made a full recovery. But just seeing him kind of go through it was huge, because you see all the memes, and it’s funny and stuff on Twitter until something actually happens to you. And seeing my dad get it, he was super weak. He could barely talk. My dad has underlying conditions as well. He’s 55, 56 years old. So, he has underlying conditions. And he was in the hospital for damn near a week, maybe six or seven days. I think that’s when I kind of started taking it more serious. Like, man, this can really happen to anybody. We don’t know much about it. And that’s when I started doing more research on it, keeping up on it every day to see what I can do to keep myself safe, my sister safe, keep my family safe. Blessed as it may be, he made a full recovery. He’s not contagious any more. He’s back on his feet. It’s a blessing that he was able to make it through, but there’s a lot of people that aren’t. So, I think having something personal happen to you like that, that’s kind of what made it, the perspective, all feel real.
It’s great news that Turner’s father recovered.
As coronavirus continues to spread, more players will have someone close to them get COVID-19. Hopefully, those cases end on similarly happy notes.