Orlando Magic forward Jonathan Isaac is stepping up in a big way. The 22-year-old is leading a relief effort to help feed children in the city of Orlando who are at risk of going hungry with school cancellations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That is why Isaac is our VA Hero of the Week, proudly…
VA Hero Of The Week: Jonathan Isaac Leading Coronavirus Relief Efforts — NESN.com
Major League Baseball currently is on hold due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and players are finding ways to give back to those on the front line. Pittsburgh Pirates players had more than 400 pizzas (and a bunch of pasta) delivered to Allegheny General Hospital on Monday, per MLB.com’s Adam Berry. It’s unclear which players contributed…
Cubs, Pirates Players Donate Food To Hospital Workers Facing COVID-19 — NESN.com
Major League Baseball currently is on hold due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and players are finding ways to give back to those on the front line. Pittsburgh Pirates players had more than 400 pizzas (and a bunch of pasta) delivered to Allegheny General Hospital on Monday, per MLB.com’s Adam Berry. It’s unclear which players contributed to the cause, but their goal was simple. “We thought this was a way to help. Two birds with one stone,” Pirates player rep Jameson Taillon said Monday, per Berry. “We can help local restaurants. We can help the hospitals and the workers and show our appreciation. We started throwing the idea around, and everyone got excited and made it happen.” Meanwhile, Chicago Cubs star Anthony Rizzo and his foundation supplied 150 meals to staff and patients at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, Fla. on Monday. Read more at: https://nesn.com/2020/03/cubs-pirates-players-donate-food-to-hospital-workers-facing-covid-19/ Read more at: https://nesn.com/2020/03/cubs-pirates-players-donate-food-to-hospital-workers-facing-covid-19/ Read more at: https://nesn.com/2020/03/cubs-pirates-players-donate-food-to-hospital-workers-facing-covid-19/
Read more at: https://nesn.com/2020/03/cubs-pirates-players-donate-food-to-hospital-workers-facing-covid-19/
Former Auburn great and NBA superstar Charles Barkley was feeling ill recently. He decided to get tested since he believed he might have the coronavirus. Thankfully, the tests came back today negative. Barkley encouraged people to stay safe after he received his news.
Charles Barkley tests negative after feeling ill — War Eagle Daily
Some of the most anticipated games of the season by Raptors fans were supposed to happen right about now. Read More
No Murray, no LeBron, no Green ring ceremony for Raptors this week — Toronto Sun
Normally, when Queen’s Plate-winning jockey Emma-Jayne Wilson does an interview, it’s done either at Woodbine Racetrack or over the phone from her home office. Read More
Emma-Jayne Wilson still fired up for the start of the season and finding ways to stay fit — Toronto Sun
Vassell is a terrific 3-point shooter and long wing with upside as an NBA-caliber 3-and-D player
2020 NBA Draft: Florida State’s Devin Vassell, the Seminoles’ leading scorer and rebounder, declares —
The star of Florida State’s first ACC title-winning team has announced he’s turning pro. On Monday, Devin Vassell, FSU’s leading scorer and rebounder, made the declaration to take his talents to the next level, formally entering the draft in a decision that had been expected for months.
“It is with a heart full of gratitude that I am entering the 2020 NBA Draft,” Vassell said. “I’ll never forget the amazing ride of these last two years, and I’m excited to see what the future holds.”
Justin Maskulinski March 20, 2020
One week ago, it was business as usual for Magnolia High School graduate Adam Kloffenstein.
The right-handed pitcher was at spring training in Dunedin, Fla., along with other players in the Toronto Blue Jays organization. His second season — and first full one in the minor leagues — was less than a month away.
Then, along with the rest of the country, Kloffenstein’s situation began to change because of cancellations aimed to thwart the spread of COVID-19, the upper-respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus.
“Everything was business as normal (last) Thursday,” Kloffenstein said in a phone interview. “A little bit more caution around hand washing and all that, but as far as activity, Thursday was full-go. On Friday, they said to just come in at noon for a meeting.”
That meeting was a check-in of sorts. After another off-day Saturday, there was a scheduled workout Sunday and another meeting set for Monday. But those plans, like so many others around the country and world, also changed.
“By Saturday morning, they said, ‘Go home,’” Kloffenstein said.
Kloffenstein went 4-4 and had a 2.24 ERA last year with the Vancouver Canadians, the Blue Jays’ Class A short-season affiliate. It was a good year for the 2018 third-round pick.
“I started off a little shaky, just kind of getting my feet planted,” he said. “After that, I had some success and was able to execute my plans a lot better and was a lot more clear on how to get guys out. I was just kind of simplifying the game. We had a fun team. We didn’t do all that great as far as record goes, but in the minor leagues, they’re not really too worried about that. We had some good, young talent up there.”
Kloffenstein was working toward a big change during the offseason. Had this season been a full one, he would’ve been making a jump from about 72 games to 144.
“That’s a long time and a lot of ups and downs to have to go through as far as mechanics and performance goes,” he said. “The biggest thing I was working on this offseason was really just trying to simplify things and figure out what my weaknesses are so I could focus on that and make adjustments.”
Physically, the 6-foot-5 pitcher was working on staying flexible and cutting a few pounds. It was all part of a plan to maintain health throughout a longer season.
It was looking like he’d be with the Lansing Lugnuts in Class A for the 2020 season, but the second-year pro hoped to work his way up to the Dunedin Blue Jays, the Class A Advanced squad in Florida.
Last Friday, when Minor League Baseball officially announced its season would not start on April 9 as originally scheduled, Kloffenstein was still a couple weeks from learning where he’d start.
Now, after a change of plans caused by the coronavirus, he hopes to stay sharp and gain an edge while he’s back at home in Texas with his parents for the foreseeable future.
“Obviously the first couple days, it was really weird, and it’s still kind of weird,” Kloffenstein said. “After the smoke clears here and things kind of get settled down, which for me, they have, you’ve got no other option other than to get better. My goal was to skip Lansing, and I view this as another chance to prove to them that I don’t need to go there. I think I’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
As of Thursday, neither Major League nor Minor League Baseball had announced plans for a return to training or play. Whenever baseball does resume, Kloffenstein hopes to come back better.
“It’s four, six, eight, 10 weeks, however long it is, for me to get an edge on whoever,” he said. “I have no choice but to keep to myself, so I’m just going to hang out with my family a little bit here and there and keep myself in shape. Hopefully, I can hit the ground running whenever this is all said and done.”
It has only been a week since the Raptors last took the court but it feels like much, much longer. Certainly the all-star break didn’t feel this long even if it was. Read More
Top five Raptors games from this season — Toronto Sun
Terence Davis II is a member of the Toronto Raptors today largely based off one stunningly good opening day at the Las Vegas summer league and a quick thinking, faster reacting, even more decisive Raptors scouting staff. Read More
Raptors’ determination to sign Davis a tale worth telling — Toronto Sun
The Calgary Flames Foundation will dole out $1.15 million in donations as part of a COVID-19 community support program. Read More
COVID-19: Calgary Flames Foundation donates $1.15 million to support agencies — Calgary Sun
Adam Silver said Saturday the NBA is considering all options — best-case, worst-case and many ideas in between — as it comes to grips with this new normal.
Silver unsure about NBA’s next move but says ‘nothing is off the table’ —
Tim Reynolds APMar 21, 2020 at 10:10pm ET.
Silver unsure about NBA’s next move but says ‘nothing is off the table’ —
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver finds himself almost constantly looking at financial numbers and projections. And like the rest of a world that is dealing with the seismic effects of the coronavirus pandemic, he still isn’t sure how bad things will get.
Silver said Saturday the league is considering all options — best-case, worst-case and countless ideas in between — as it tries to come to grips with this new normal. But definitive answers on any front are in short supply.
“It’s too soon to tell what the economic impact will be,” Silver said. “We’ve been analyzing multiple scenarios on a daily, if not hourly, basis and we’ll continue to review the financial implications. Obviously, it’s not a pretty picture but everyone, regardless of what industry they work in, is in the same boat.”
Saturday marked the 10th full day of the NBA’s shutdown, a stoppage that has cost the league 75 games and counting so far, a total that will reach triple digits on Wednesday and will eventually get to 259 on April 15 — the day the regular season was supposed to end. Play isn’t going to resume by then. The financial losses will be massive and will obviously just keep growing if this season cannot resume or if next season is affected.
“Adam is obviously cautious, cautiously optimistic,” Cleveland forward Kevin Love said earlier in the week. “We don’t know what the future holds but the NBA has been through a lot, we’ve seen a lot and I think we’ll be incredibly resilient. It just might take time.”
Players who are due to get their next paycheck on April 1 will get them. Whether those players will get their April 15 check is in some question; the league can exercise a clause in the Collective Bargaining Agreement that allows it to take back 1.08% of each player’s salary for each game missed in certain times — like war, or in this case, a pandemic.
That clause has not been exercised yet since, officially anyway, no game has been canceled.
“We’re exploring all options to resume our season if and when it is safe to do so,” Silver said. “Nothing is off the table.”
Besides, there are other bridges to cross first. The NBA — which was the first major U.S. pro league to say it would play games without fans and the first league to suspend its season once All-Star center Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz tested positive — has been extremely vocal in trying to get its massive fan base to take social distancing and other preventative measures seriously.
“Our focus right now is doing all that we can to support, engage and educate the general public in response to this pandemic,” Silver said. “We are also making sure that we are prepared to resume the season if and when it becomes safe for all concerned.”
The league has asked teams for building availability dates through the end of August, an indicator that this season — if it resumes — may stretch deep into the summer.
So far, there are 14 people within the NBA community, including at least 10 players, known to have tested positive for COVID-19. Of those positive tests, seven became known publicly on Thursday, and Marcus Smart of the Boston Celtics revealed that he has the virus.
“Unfortunately, based on everything we know, significantly more positive cases in our league were inevitable,” Silver said. “So, Thursday’s results did not come as a huge surprise and just like everyone else, we’re just trying to take each day as it comes.”
For most people, the coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.
Entering Saturday, there were about 19,000 known positive cases in the U.S. and more than 250 deaths blamed on the virus. Globally, there have been nearly 300,000 cases diagnosed so far with nearly 12,000 deaths. The virus first exploded in mainland China, where the NBA has offices and about 200 employees.
What workers in China went through helped the league quickly grasp some sort of understanding of the severity. Silver made the decision to shut down the league before any public health experts advised the NBA to take that step. He even sounded the alarm publicly in mid-February at NBA All-Star weekend in Chicago — saying then it was “a major national, if not global, health crisis” that was taking place.
“We’ve learned a lot from our China office,” Silver said, noting that meetings have been of the virtual variety there for several weeks now.
Silver’s sixth full season as commissioner of the NBA started with the league getting into a major rift with China. His mentor and NBA Commissioner emeritus David Stern died two months later. Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash less than a month after that.
Now he is dealing with the biggest crisis of them all — a pandemic, affecting and threatening virtually every corner of the planet.
“It’s been a challenging season,” Silver said. “For all of us.”
One of the key requirements of being an NBA agent is spending plenty of in-person time with your clients. Of course, that’s an impossibility these days, with measures in place to try to stem the coronavirus pandemic. Self-quarantining and social distancing are the themes of the moment, so everyone needs to adapt, including in the…
Siakam’s agent Ramasar talks doing the job in age of coronavirus — Toronto Sun
Todd Ramasar said he’s talking to Pascal Siakam and the rest of his clients more frequently in lieu of being able to visit.
“Because, I think more than anything, and this is not just for athletes, you just talk about the effects on mental health. Kind of being in self-isolation,” Ramasar told Postmedia in a phone interview. “Even with family and loved ones, just having your normal routine taken away overnight, it takes its toll on anybody. So, for a lot of my guys, it’s just making sure they’re good,” he said.
Information is constantly arriving as we all go through his odd period and it’s no different for professional athletes. Ramasar says questions have been evolving as more is learned and as more time passes.
“The initial conversations were mainly business. Also their health and safety. But now that we’re a week into this, it’s more like, ‘Are you good. How can we be helpful?’” he said.
“A lot of them are staying (put), can’t go work out at their facilities. So trying to get workout equipment into their homes and talk to their teams. Just making sure that they’re not getting stir-crazy just sitting in their homes. Since there aren’t very many activities for them to do,” Ramasar said.
“There’s literally nothing. You can’t go to the movies, you can’t go shopping. You can’t go out to eat. Everything is from home base. And for these guys, where their internal clock has been on the road traveling (for 41 road outings or more) or going to a game or, you know, interacting with (team) staff and personnel. That camaraderie. And then, overnight, that’s taken away or that shifts. That’s tough,” Ramasar told Postmedia.
It’s also difficult because nobody knows what’s next, or how long it might take before training and games can resume.
“It’s tough to say, I mean I think it’s gonna be challenging the longer this plays out. Because it’s not a matter of logistics,” Ramasar said when asked to opine on when the league will be back. “I think for the NBA to return the season, say, in mid-June, it’s more of a matter that these guys are going to need at least a month to practice and find the rhythm and the chemistry again that they would have lost over that extended period of time. Because, what you don’t want to do is put these high-level athletes back on the floor without practice. To throw them out there in a high-level environment, which would be the playoffs (and potentially the end of the regular season), I think it’ll put them in harm’s way and increase the likelihood of serious injury. And that’s the challenge.”
more….
Siakam’s agent Ramasar talks doing the job in age of coronavirus — Toronto Sun
The view from left field 