On January 7, Beijing time, when the NBA suffered a serious impact of the epidemic this season, according to the latest statistics released by the US media, the NBA has 580 players out of the game this season, creating a record for the number of players in a single season in the history of the NBA, an increase of 40 people compared with the record of 540 people last season, and may continue to break the 600 mark.
Due to the impact of the epidemic on the NBA, there is no team that triggers the league's health and safety agreements, and even many teams have postponed many games due to insufficient manpower, such as the Bulls, Nets, Nuggets, etc. have postponed games.
In this case, the NBA's response policy is to allow the team to use difficult exceptions to use ten-day contracts to develop the league to sign "temporary" firefighters, so as to meet the team's minimum participation requirement of 8 people. In addition, the NBA league has cut the quarantine time of asymptomatic players who trigger health and safety protocols from 10 days to a minimum of 6 days, but it still cannot stop the inevitable trend of players reaching record highs in this game.
It is based on this factor that many former marginal players have returned to the NBA, 40+ years old Joe Johnson has been awarded a ten-day contract, Stephenson has returned after a gap of two years, and even Gerald Green, who has transformed into a Rockets assistant coach, has also chosen to return to play the game again.
There are currently 580 players in the game this season, setting a record for the highest number of appearances in a single season in NBA history. The NBA previously recorded 540 players in a single season, reaching 540 twice in the 2020-21 and 2017-18 seasons.
Further ahead, there were 530 players in the 2018-19 season, 529 in the 2019-20 season, and less than 500 in the previous 6 seasons, which fully reflects how much the epidemic has affected the NBA in recent seasons.
(Text/Drunken Floating Life)