Why JaVale McGee is going to be watched very closely in Orlando

While all players are obviously going to be very careful about their health at the end of the season in Orlando, some will have to be even more careful. This is the case with JaVale McGee.

Paranoia around the state of health of each obviously reigns on the sidelines of the resumption of the NBA. Florida continues to see its COVID-19 cases explode, players are positive like Malcolm Brogdon and Nikola Jokic, and everyone is wondering if the season can actually end.

If everything goes as planned, and it is plausible, it is in the Orlando bubble that it will happen. Staff, officials and players will be subject to a very strict protocol, but some, considered at risk, will be monitored even more closely.

This is the case of JaVale McGee, for a single season: he suffers from asthma. A virus like COVID, which attacks the respiratory capacity, is therefore to be seriously avoided for the Lakers pivot in view of possible complications.

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However, where several of his healthy counterparts do not want to play, McGee is attacking. This is what he explained to the LA Times:

I am comfortable, totally. It’s been a while since we last played and a while since we are COVID-free (reference to the 2 Lakers who had tested positive at the start of the epidemic, editor’s note). I think everything will be fine as long as we take the necessary precautions.

Asthma or not, nothing to panic for McGee, determined to go get his first ring with the Lakers.

The Times also specifies that the doctors of the Lakers could treat the pivot differently from the rest of the roster, by protecting it as much as possible. A week ago, all NBA players had to fill out a 3-page questionnaire on their health liabilities, and one of the questions concerned, precisely, asthma.

JaVale McGee doesn’t intend to miss the end of the season, even though he’s at risk. A laudable attitude as a competitor, and which we hope will not come back to him like a boomerang.

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