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Carlisle: NBA promised coaches won't be barred from campus due to age

Mark Sobhani / National Basketball Association / Getty

Dallas Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle, the president of the National Basketball Coaches Association, says the NBA will not use age as the sole determinant of whether a coach can enter the league's Walt Disney World campus when basketball returns in late July.

"Everybody goes through a screening process, but we've been assured by the league that no one will be red-flagged from going to Orlando based on age alone," Carlisle said, according to ESPN's Tim MacMahon. "That was a very positive thing for us to hear, but as I said, everybody in all 22 markets - all staff, all players, everybody - goes through a significant screening process.

"We'll see who ends up going, not going, etc. But we were very encouraged to hear that age alone would not be something that would keep you from going to Orlando."

The CDC says that the risk of illness from COVID-19 increases with age, and adults 65 and older have accounted for 80% of the reported deaths in the United States so far.

All three active NBA head coaches in that at-risk age bracket are employed by franchises that are taking part in the NBA's 22-team restart plan: the San Antonio Spurs' Gregg Popovich (71), the Houston Rockets' Mike D'Antoni (69), and the New Orleans Pelicans' Alvin Gentry (65). Portland Trail Blazers coach Terry Stotts is 62, while Carlisle himself is 60.

To date, no NBA head coach has withdrawn from participating in the campus, which will require successful teams to stay on site from mid-July to early October. However, the WNBA's Seattle Storm announced Monday that their 65-year-old head coach Dan Hughes, who had a cancerous tumor removed from his digestive tract last year, would sit out the league's own single-site 2020 season after consulting with medical professionals.

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