The Denver Nuggets are confident that they’ll have Nikola Jokic, their best player, back when they resume their 2019-20 season.
Next Tuesday, when the Denver Nuggets depart for Orlando to resume their 2019-20 season, Nuggets head coach Mike Malone believes that franchise Nikola Jokic will be there with them.
Just last week, Jokic tested positive for the Coronavirus in his native country of Serbia, where he was determined to asymptomatic. Jokic will have to test negative for the virus two times within 24 hours before he’s allowed to depart from Serbia and must undergo another test (as well as a cardiac screening) once he returns to Denver.
"“Nikola feels great,” Malone said in a Zoom call with reporters on Wednesday. “We are working on getting him back here. Next Tuesday we depart for Orlando; the hope and expectation is that Nikola Jokic will be with us on that plane. From everything that I have heard and talked to him, he feels great, he feels fine and is excited to get back.”"
Last week, Jokic’s father would tell Eurohoops.net that Jokic isn’t just free of any symptoms but that “what he had is gone.”
Malone, who tested positive for COVID-19 during the league’s hiatus, confirmed that the Nuggets shut down their practice facility after multiple members of the team’s personnel also contracted the virus. Although there haven’t been any indications that players want to opt-out of returning for the 2019-20, Malone says he fully supports if any Nuggets players don’t want to take part in the NBA’s return-to-play, particularly with Florida’s recent spike of Coronavirus cases.
For his part though, Malone says he feels “pretty safe” about playing in the bubble that the NBA has set up in Orlando.
“Maybe the good thing for us is having the positive tests that we have had, going down there and getting that out of the way and getting it now,” Malone says. “And when it is time to get down to the bubble, maybe you are a little more immune to getting it.
While Malone’s confidence clearly isn’t shared by everyone in the Association, there’s no doubt that the league has taken every precautionary measure they can in their return-to-play plan.