Nine NBA players test positive for COVID-19 just weeks ahead of restart

In the second round of testing to cover all the NBA players flying to Disney World in Orlando, Florida, nine more players tested positive for COVID-19 as of July 2. This is on top of the 16 players already found positive last week.

In a series of tests conducted on 344 NBA players between June 24-29, an additional nine players were found to be infected with the coronavirus. The total number of players who tested positive is now 25. That's almost 7% of players qualified to continue to play for the 2019-2020 championship.

An additional 10 NBA staff members out of 884 also tested positive.

According to NPR, as per league rules, everyone who tested positive will remain in self-isolation for 14 days and will not be allowed to leave until cleared by a physician.

Last week, 302 players were tested, and 16 players were found to have been infected. They are now in self-isolation.

This week, those cleared by physicians are flying into the Disney World bubble to start their mandatory 14-day quarantine period. The league hopes that all players will be cleared by mid-July, so that they will have two weeks of practice before the official start of the games on July 30.

22 teams remain in contention for the 2019-2020 NBA championship. There are 9 teams in the Eastern Conference and 13 in the Western Conference. All teams will play 8 more games against each other to simulate the end of their regular season schedule.

The final seeding for the postseason will be determined by the result of their round-robin games and their current standing before the suspension took effect on March 11.

The bubble games will follow the traditional playoffs format and a seven-game NBA finals series between the winners of each conference. If everything goes according to schedule, the season will end by mid-October.

All games will be played without fans and will be aired by networks with pre-existing agreements with the NBA.