Two more Bulls players — Ayo Dosunmu and Stanley Johnson — landed in the NBA’s health and safety protocols Saturday, bringing Chicago’s total to seven players sidelined amid a teamwide COVID-19 outbreak.
Johnson just signed a 10-day contract with the Bulls on Thursday after the team was granted a hardship exception to add another roster spot with so many players out. However, he and Dosunmu, who started the past two games, were out for Saturday’s game against the Miami Heat.
“We need a hardship for a hardship right now,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said prior to the game.
The two players join DeMar DeRozan, Coby White, Javonte Green, Matt Thomas and Derrick Jones Jr. in the league’s protocols.
Since the start of the outbreak, the Bulls have begun testing players and coaches multiple times per day to try to monitor the spread of the virus. Chicago’s G-League affiliate, the Windy City Bulls, postponed their games on Saturday and Sunday because they won’t have eight players available due to positive tests within the team.
Jones entered the protocol on Friday while he was with the Bulls in Miami, but Donovan confirmed Saturday that Jones had returned to Chicago to begin his isolation period. After landing in health and safety protocols, players must remain in isolation for at least 10 days or until they return two negative PCR tests in a 24-hour period.
“Maybe some of it’s because of the vaccination, we’ve got a lot of guys sitting at home with no symptoms right now,” Donovan said. “That’s obviously a good thing, too, because I think when guys have gone through a real difficulty of getting really, really sick, it’s really made it a lot harder for them coming back.
“We do have some guys that have felt under the weather, we have guys that have very, very mild symptoms, and some guys that just don’t have any.”
The Bulls have not been the only team trying to manage outbreaks. The Charlotte Hornets, who played the Bulls at the United Center about two weeks ago, have five players in the health and safety protocols.
Others who recently landed in the league’s COVID protocols include Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant, Washington Wizards forward Kyle Kuzma, Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle and Toronto Raptors executive Masai Ujiri.
As the NBA navigates another season amid the pandemic, one major difference from last year is that, so far, the league has not needed to postpone any games.
The Bulls still had 11 players available Saturday night in Miami, including two two-way players, another in Alfonzo McKinnie, who signed a 10-day contract Friday, and guard Alex Caruso, who was available after missing the past two games with a hamstring injury.
That gave them well above the eight-player minimum the NBA used as a threshold to postpone games last season.
“I would totally understand if somebody on our team’s like, ‘Listen, I don’t feel comfortable with this. We’re together, we’re practicing and I don’t feel comfortable playing,'” Donovan said. “We haven’t had any of that, but certainly COVID has impacted people in a lot of different ways, and I think people have, at least inside of our team, have had loved ones that have really suffered from it.
“It is a scary time. Our guys have really done a good job of just trying to put their best foot forward to try to really stay locked in on, ‘This is what I have to do,’ or, ‘This is what I can control,’ and try to move forward with it.”