The Chicago Bulls reached a breaking point over the weekend.
Ten players have landed in the NBA’s COVID-19 protocol in less than two weeks, gutting the core of the roster, including stars Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan. The Bulls haven’t been able to last 48 hours without a new player being yanked into quarantine, with four players entering the protocol this past weekend alone.
With no end in sight and the group of players in quarantine growing, anxiety is festering throughout the team as players, coaches and staff wonder how to fend off future spread.
“That’s the scary part — we’re around these guys all the time,” coach Billy Donovan said. “I mean, hopefully this will slow down at some point, right?”
Dr. Brian Cole, a sports medicine surgeon at Midwest Orthopedics at Rush University Medical Center, says the Bulls outbreak reflects a growing understanding — and lack of it — about the nuanced effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The entire Bulls roster received both doses of the vaccine earlier this year, and center Nikola Vu？evi？ confirmed Saturday that most of his teammates received booster shots when they were made available this month. But these teamwide efforts haven’t protected the Bulls from the largest outbreak of the NBA season.
NBA postpones the Chicago Bulls’ next 2 games due to the team’s COVID-19 outbreak, which stands at 10 players in the last 2 weeks ？
“We had this hope and sense that the vaccine was going to prevent everything,” Cole said. “Apparently, it’s just not happening. That might have to do with the transmissibility of variants, including delta and omicron, but in general, the vaccine is not preventing reinfection.”
In only 13 days, the Bulls had more active players enter the COVID-19 protocol than any other team in the league: Coby White (Dec. 1), Javonte Green (Dec. 3), DeRozan (Dec. 5), Matt Thomas (Tuesday), Derrick Jones Jr. (Thursday), Ayo Dosunmu and Stanley Johnson (Saturday), LaVine and Tony Brown Jr. (Sunday) and Alize Johnson (Monday). Vu？evi？ also previously spent 11 days in isolation after testing positive Nov. 11.
Frustration bubbled over for Bulls players after their second straight blowout loss Saturday in Miami.
“A lot of it doesn’t make much sense right now,” Vu？evi？ said. “Obviously the scientists and everybody around the world don’t have the answers. I definitely don’t. But some things are just weird.”
Bulls center Nikola Vu？evi？ fouls Heat forward P.J. Tucker on Saturday, Dec. 11, 2021, in Miami. (Marta Lavandier / AP)
Although it’s rare to see this many players test positive on the same team, Cole said this level of spread is to be expected in workplaces that require close proximity and aerobic strain for long periods of time.
“It is common in a setting where you’re in close quarters,” Cole said. “This is no different than when it first started in March 2020. You saw droves of (cases) where the common denominator was there were many people in a small space. Basketball is a contact sport and it’s full of respiratory aerosolization. So it’s a high-risk environment.”
Mandated isolation is harder to swallow for players who don’t feel they’re sick. Donovan said most of his players have experienced mild symptoms at most. Cole and Donovan both attributed this to vaccinations, which are proven to diminish symptoms and prevent long-term effects of COVID-19.
While Donovan and players expressed gratitude for this continued healthy trend, the extensive absences of asymptomatic players have become a point of frustration.
“For me for example, if I never tested, I would never know it was COVID because I didn’t really have any symptoms,” Vu？evi？ said. “You can’t do anything about it. It just sucks that when you get it, you have to be out for 10 days and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Chicago Bulls’ COVID-19 woes show the staying power of the disease — but experts ‘optimistic’ that vaccine boosters will help ？
Although many Bulls players are reporting mild symptoms, that experience isn’t universal across the league. Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid — who entered COVID-19 protocol three days before Vu？evi？ — said his symptoms were extreme throughout a nine-game absence.
“It hasn’t been good. That ‘jawn’ hit me hard,” Embiid said after his first game back Nov. 28. “I really thought I wasn’t going to make it. It was that bad.”
Cole noted players might be symptomatic even if they don’t feel sick. Symptoms for vaccinated individuals are often so mild — slight fatigue, coughing, congestion — that young, otherwise healthy people typically wouldn’t disrupt their lives for them.
Until medical professionals create a way to determine the contagiousness of asymptomatic individuals, Cole said these quarantine periods will remain necessary to prevent outbreaks.
“It may have less to do with player health because they’re relatively asymptomatic and the risk of cardiac problems like myocarditis and so forth are relatively low,” Cole said. “It’s less about preventing people from getting really sick. It’s just about the ability to transmit it to someone else.”
Heat guard Tyler Herro looks to pass as Bulls guard Zach LaVine defends Saturday, Dec. 11, 2021, in Miami. (Marta Lavandier/AP)
With more than 90% of the league vaccinated, Cole said the current environment in the NBA presents a “fascinating and troublesome” quandary. In many ways, the NBA and the U.S. at large are shifting their COVID-19 focus from survival to long-term prevention.
Even during a period like the last two weeks — in which 22 players landed in the NBA protocol, nearly half of them Bulls players — Cole said concerns about long-term health impacts are less heightened than they were last season.
“Thankfully, we’re not having a discussion where people are getting sick, hospitalized and dying,” Cole said. “We’re having a different discussion — when is it proper to reintroduce someone back into a work environment? For all intents and purposes, the potential to turn someone else positive is if you’re infectious. So when can this person be considered safe and non-infectious?”
The Bulls are scheduled to host the Detroit Pistons on Tuesday at the United Center barring a postponement by the league. Six players have entered the COVID-19 protocol since the last time the Bulls played at home.
Cole advised fans to consider the risk of the people they would be closest to in an arena — fellow attendees in the stands, not players and coaches on the court.
Between high vaccination rates and stricter protocols regarding prevention methods such as masking and testing, NBA players are more rigorously protected than the average person. Cole said general testing numbers in Chicago and Cook County are a better barometer for fan safety than the cases within the team.
“I don’t think that what we’re experiencing puts a fan at risk,” Cole said. “I would hate for people to make decisions based on that. That would not be evidence-based or rational.”
The Bulls face another looming hurdle this week — a game in Toronto scheduled for Thursday. Vaccinated travelers are randomly tested at the border. If a player tests positive in Canada, he could be required to quarantine and produce negative tests before returning to the U.S.
As the season marches on without postponements, players, coaches, staff and fans are asking the same question: How can the Bulls escape this outbreak?
There aren’t many options. The league limited the team to essential activities such as practices and games, but that goes only so far when players are sharing locker rooms and spending hours on the court together. White and Green could return early this week, while DeRozan might be eligible to return by Thursday’s game.
In the meantime, players are being tested multiple times each day. Donovan said the Bulls were tested at 11 p.m. Friday, then at 7 the next morning to create enough peace of mind to hold a shootaround in Miami. But testing is reactionary, not preventative.
The only concrete way to slow the outbreak would be a full-on suspension and isolation for the entire team. But the NBA has been slower to call off games this season unless teams drop below the mandated minimum of eight players.
Cole said this shift in quarantine mandates is part of a nationwide shift as medical professionals balance how to live with COVID-19 when risks are mitigated through vaccines.
“Going back to draconian processes is not without consequences,” Cole said. “The psychological impact on people during the isolation, asking them potentially not to see their family or socialize with their teammates — especially at a time when they have amazing camaraderie like they do with each other — is not without potential concern. So nobody wants to have a knee-jerk reaction to this.”
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