Milwaukee Bucks: Marc Lasry confident in season resumption, bubble
The Milwaukee Bucks have entered the bubble in Orlando and co-owner Marc Lasry remains confident that the NBA’s return will go on as planned.
The NBA and the Milwaukee Bucks have officially descended upon Orlando and arrived in Walt Disney World Resort.
Three weeks ahead of when the 2019-20 NBA season is supposed to restart, getting to this point is a critical achievement. Yet, so many pitfalls remain in the time between teams settling into the bubble and when game action is supposed to get underway around the resort.
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Despite the many concerns, especially as the state of Florida continues to struggle with an outbreak of infections, Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry believes the NBA’s plan will go smoothly all the same.
In a recent interview on ‘Influencers with Andy Serwer’ over at Yahoo! Finance, which was filmed late last month, Lasry touched on all things related to the season restarting and the bubble and Lasry’s confidence in the league’s bubble was evident from the opening of the interview:
"“I think we’re very confident. What’s being created is a village, think of it as an Olympic village. You come in and it’s a little bit like a cocoon. You’ll come in, get tested every other day. It’ll be very hard for people to contract the virus. Doesn’t mean they won’t. Obviously, people will get sick and get the virus. But ultimately, I think the way it’s being set up will be very safe for the players…mainly because it’s going to be a controlled environment.”"
Although Lasry’s confidence was clear in how the league has set up the 2019-20 season restart, some players from the participating teams have backed out of action, citing personal reasons and the risks involved. Still, Lasry was encouraged by the fact that the majority of players are in Florida at the moment, and that includes his own team in the Bucks:
"“I think the vast majority are going to Florida and the vast majority feel safe and comfortable. What we’ve said is that anybody feels uncomfortable, they shouldn’t come. There’s no pressure for you to come. For whatever reason, if you don’t want to take the risk personally or you’ve got a family member that has issues and you don’t want to take that risk, everybody is fine with that. We’re letting players make up their mind and the players union has voted for and is comfortable, so everyone has agreed on what we’re doing.”"
While the NBA is set to get underway in Orlando, bigger picture topics, such as social justice reform, remain at hand. Talking about his experiences like taking part in the Bucks’ protest in Milwaukee last month and Sterling Brown’s wrongful arrest, Lasry talked about his and the team’s mission to do their part in righting these injustices that have been long overdue:
"“I think what we’re trying to do is make more people aware of what we can do on the social justice side. For us, my family and I flew out to Milwaukee so that we could support our players and in essence, social justice. We thought it was important for us as an organization and as a family to be part of that.I think we’re already a little more attuned to it, simply because we already had a player, Sterling Brown, who dealt with similar issues a number of years ago, so we’ve gotten very involved in bringing about change and social justice in Milwaukee and around the country.”"
Lasry even offered his full support of players donning uniforms with protesting police brutality and the names of victims of police brutality or racial injustice as a whole:
"“At the end of the day, what I’m a big believer in is your freedom of expression. Your ability to say what you think and so I think if Giannis, or if any of the players believe in something, and want to express that, they should. So I’m in full support of that.”"
We know that at least one Bucks player, that being Pat Connaughton, will change his jersey name and sport the word ‘Equality’ on the back of his uniform when down in Orlando.
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Throughout the last few months, Lasry has been a voice for optimism that the season is far from over. Now as the restart gets closer with each passing day, Lasry will hope that the Bucks’ chase for a championship will become a strange, surreal dream come true in a few months time.