The search for a home, or at least a place to temporarily call home, continues for the but at least they have a firm timeline.
The NBA’s decision to go full throttle on an accelerated path to the 2020-21 season is now official, putting added pressure on Toronto to find some place to play the home portion of a 72-game regular season that will begin Dec. 22.
Whether that’s in the Scotiabank Arena or one of several possible American sites remains unclear but Raptors officials are pressing to get approval to play in their usual spot.
Any plan to play in Toronto would take approval of three levels of government, along with the NBA and the NBA Players Association, no easy feat. But it is a fight worth fighting, the franchise believes, because the overwhelming desire is to be somewhere where they control everything from housing to practice facilities to medical facilities to transportation to and from airports and arenas.
They have that in Toronto; they wouldn’t necessarily have it in any other city.
There have been back channel discussions with the various governments — they were sympathetically received, according to sources who have been involved — but there is no imminent resolution.
The current COVID-19 situation in Toronto and Ontario is hardly conducive to more openings or exemptions and the United States is also in the throes of rampant escalation, none of it a good harbinger. The most significant thing the Raptors can do is present a well-thought-out plan. They and the NBA do have some history in being able to protect the general public and themselves during rampant growth of positive tests — they succeeded in Florida when the state was a coronavirus petri dish, it seemed — and that is a point they have made, according to people briefed on the discussions.
The Raptors have done some due diligence on American cities in case they are forced to find a temporary home. But there are so many things at play in finding a place where they can be comfortable, perhaps for months. It is far harder than simply picking a city with a legitimate NBA arena.
They need first-class accommodations they have some control over for testing, off-day activities, families, a full team staff and visiting teams. They need a city that has the infrastructure for their training needs, which are extensive: a practice gym with multiple baskets, fitness facilities, suitable medical and treatment facilities. And with the schedule likely to be heavily weighted for conference play, a temporary home needs to be in the East for ease of travel.
Most of the logical assumptions and reported possibilities — Newark, N.J., Nashville, Buffalo and presumably others that haven’t leaked out in the media yet — have most of the prerequisites but finding one with all of them could be troublesome. The Raptors have had to pack up once, moving operations to Naples, Fla., before entering the league’s Orlando-area bubble for the conclusion to the 2019-20 season.
Toronto, of course, has all the prerequisites but the issues with the Canada-U.S. border and the exploding COVID-19 numbers in Ontario are issues.
Dealing with visiting teams would seem to be the least of the problems. With rapid testing, it’s entirely possible for visiting teams to be tested before it leaves its home base and to be sequestered in a five-star area hotel near Scotiabank Arena with all the catering and personal needs taken care of. The teams would be tested again on the day of a game and could fly out right after. And scheduling something like a series of six-game homestands would allow teams to get in and out with little local disruption.
The major issue could be how to handle the Raptors themselves when they take road trips to the U.S. and have to return to Canada, where they could be required to isolate for up to two weeks, an impossibility for a workable NBA schedule. But the Raptors could propose a modified isolation plan to satisfy the medical needs of the various levels of government that would have to approve any return to play in Toronto.
The league would insist on daily testing for its players, coaches and staff members. Would that, plus a bubble-like setup where the players would be tested daily and travel only between their homes and the team’s practice and game facilities, be enough to appease the city, the province and the federal government?
The biggest problem may be time. The accelerated start to the 2020-21 season announced Monday — the draft is Nov. 18, free agency signings start Nov. 22, and training camps open Dec. 1 — leaves little flexibility.
Doug Smith is a sports reporter based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter:
