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Lakers, every other NBA team will reportedly shut down practice facility by Friday due to coronavirus

The Lakers — and the rest of the NBA — are likely going to pretty rusty if and when they do come back this season, as the league’s players will no longer have a team practice facility to use to stay in shape.

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Los Angeles Remembers NBA Star Kobe Bryant Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images

During the NBA’s coronavirus suspension, the Los Angeles Lakers have been telling their players to check in daily and only work out at home or at the team’s practice facility in El Segundo.

According to multiple reports, however, the latter option will no longer be available to them, or any players on the league’s other 29 teams:

As Woj notes, this probably was always the way things were going to go, even if the Lakers were taking precautions while doing these workouts, such as taking players’ temperatures at the door, making sure they only worked out with a single assistant coach, and sanitizing their hands and the ball immediately before and after each workout. This virus is just too contagious, and too many cities are imposing restrictions on what buildings are allowed to be open, for the Lakers (or any other team) to still be allowed to remain open, even if they already weren’t having group practices.

It was already hard to imagine NBA players being in anywhere close to basketball shape when and if the season resumes, and this move makes that even more unlikely. Some players likely have places to shoot around at home, but solitary shooting, running on a treadmill, lifting weights or other such workouts are hardly a substitute for NBA basketball.

This shift will likely affect almost every team just about equally, but these players are going to be rusty if they do come back and jump right into some sort of abbreviated postseason this year.

Still, the league shutting down in the wake of Rudy Gobert’s coronavirus diagnosis did seem to be a watershed moment in the United States’ response to the threat of COVID-19, the first domino that triggered a wave of other sports to cancel or suspend their seasons and events, emphasizing to people how serious this threat is. Perhaps this latest measure can be a public example to highlight the importance of social distancing, and set a good example for people as a reminder that we should all be staying as solitary and close to home as possible as our society works to slow the spread of this thing.

For more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts. You can follow Harrison on Twitter at @hmfaigen.

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