Rockets: How the NBA botched the Danuel House investigation

The imaginary fear of a COVID-19 outbreak

There have been several popular theories behind the NBA’s decision to hold out House from games before completing the investigation. The first one is that Silver was afraid of a potential COVID-19 outbreak from the coronavirus tester that House is alleged to have had in his hotel room.

But if such a concern existed, the wise thing to do would have been to postpone Game 3, as opposed to having the players all take the court, and especially considering the timelines the league was operating under. According to Sam Amick and Shams Charania of The Athletic, the woman in question left the Rockets’ Grand Floridian hotel on Tuesday morning, which is the same day Game 3 took place between the Rockets and Lakers.

If there was a true concern about a potential COVID outbreak, surely a 12-hour turnaround wouldn’t alleviate that. Another thing that hasn’t been pointed out is the fact that the visitor stated that she interacted with two Rockets’ players, one of which being Tyson Chandler and the other remained unidentified, although she made it clear that she didn’t interact with House.

But Chandler was cleared on Wednesday and was allowed to join the team on Thursday for Game 4. The fact that Chandler was able to rejoin the team amidst an “investigation” in which the visitor stated that she was around him says two things: for starters, the league disregarded the witness, and secondly they weren’t concerned about a COVID outbreak, which further refutes that premise.

Next: Lack of evidence against House