NBA News: Toronto Raptors may be banned from crossing the US-Canada border to play games

The Toronto Raptors is the only NBA team that's based outside the United States. If they will play an average of 30 plus games in the U.S., and host another 30 plus games for the rest of the NBA teams coming to Toronto, it presents a significant health risk for Canada amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

According to Bleacher Report, the Toronto Raptors have submitted a good plan to host games at Scotiabank Arena during the 2020-21 NBA season, but their cross-border travel "continues to be an issue."

The US-Canada border is closed for non-essential travel, and those who do cross the border are subject to a 14-day quarantine. With NBA games scheduled twice a week, it presents a problem for the Toronto Raptors and the rest of the NBA.

There are currently plans to moving the Raptors "home" base to Newark, New Jersey, or Tampa, Florida, to circumvent this problem.

Even if the Raptors decide to move home arenas for the duration of the 2020-2021 regular season, their homes and families are still in Toronto. The players would still want to fly back to Toronto as often as possible.

Being away from their families is the top reason why players refused to implement the secure bubble environment that the NBA used to finish the 2019-2020 season.

The COVID-19 cases in both Canada and the U.S are still on the rise. The United States is a particularly hard hit country with over 10 million cases to date, 180,000 new cases, and 243,000 deaths.

The NBA still has not yet released the schedule for the upcoming 2020-2021 season that's scheduled to start by December 22nd. The league also has not announced safety protocols for away teams visiting other cities to play games.

The league promised that the 72-game regular season will reduce travel to mitigate the risk of coronavirus infection among NBA teams. However, it's still not clear how that would happen while balancing the number of games among the 30 NBA teams.