Miami Heat: Will players testing positive play at all in the NBA restart?

The Miami Heat have been impacted by the coronavirus as they look to head to Orlando and the NBA restart. Will those impacted ever join the team?

The Miami Heat are the latest team to be hit with coronavirus positive test. With the NBA getting set to kick things off in Orlando, it is imperative that they try to enter the bubble as safe and whole as possible. This goes for the Miami Heat as a team and the NBA as a whole.

While the first thing on our minds is always the safety of the person and player, they are set to complete the season and that brings up questions. The specific question in mind today surrounds the Miami Heat players that have already tested positive and their statuses for the remainder of the season and post-season play.

If you wonder why this is a question, look no further than Taurean Prince of the Brooklyn Nets. If you look at this tweet from Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, then you see that although he was reported as an “opt-out” initially, he was “declared out” due to the positive test’s interference with his “build-up back to basketball” when it was all said and done.

The Miami Heat have a trio of positive cases among their players. Looking at Taurean Prince in Brooklyn, will they play at all in the restart?

While that language is vague, from the perspective of who that decision came from, it makes you wonder about the Miami Heat players that have tested positive. Derrick Jones Jr. was the first reported case for the Heat, while two more players have since tested positive.

All indicated in this report by Barry Jackson and Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald, they also are rotational players. The team hasn’t made an announcement about who it might be, while there have also been no reports about who the players may be.

There was a bit of sleuthing going on around social media on Wednesday as certain users tried to narrow things down by seeing who was posting or being posted as they left for Orlando, but that’s just fans doing what they do.

That’s not as important right now as whether we can expect to see them back with the team at any point though in the restart, as that would open up a whole new world of questions. We will keep our eyes peeled but in the meantime, we should wish whoever they are a speedy recovery and hope they can possibly get back if they are up to it.