In normal times, the first extended road trip of the season – five games spread across nine days in five cities – would include at least a few team-wide activities at restaurants, museums, theaters or other entertainment venues.
But these are most abnormal times and so the Pistons will be mostly confined to their hotel rooms when they’re not playing games or traveling to get to them.
The NBA has sanctioned a few to a handful of restaurants in every city to host team dinners in socially distanced fashion and that’s as close as the Pistons will come to following the traditions for extended road trips established over the years.
“The only protocol we’re allowed to have in this situation is to rent out a restaurant. I think we have that planned here somewhere on the trip,” Dwane Casey said as the Pistons opened the longest trip of the season’s first half. “We even have our team meetings now on Zoom to limit the number of interactions that we have. These are different times.”
Game days have been disrupted with daily testing dictating the course of the day. The typical morning shootaround gets pushed back or shelved altogether.
“It’s totally different. A lot of things are fluid as far as travel because of different testing in different cities and how long it takes to get test results back,” Casey said after Sunday’s practice in San Francisco before the Pistons traveled to Denver for Monday’s game with the Nuggets. “Sometimes it takes a little longer to get the results back to have shootaround. That was the routine yesterday. Took longer than normal so we had to have walk-through in the afternoon. Threw us out of our routine.”
But at least game days still have a structure. After playing at Denver on Monday and at Utah on Tuesday, the Pistons will have two non-game days before finishing the trip with a back to back at Phoenix and Los Angeles on Friday and Saturday.
That means a lot of time staring at hotel-room walls, watching TV, playing video games or talking to friends and family members via Zoom or FaceTime. The Pistons have nine players 23 or younger – players seeing many of these cities for a first time and the curiosity and energy to want to explore them – but even for veterans like Wayne Ellington or Jerami Grant, it’s not easy to have so few options to pass the time.
“I think it’s equally trying for all of us,” Ellington said. “It’s a tough situation for all of us. It’s something we just have to continue to abide by the protocols and just get through. It won’t stay like this forever.”
“It’s definitely different,” Grant said. “But you’ve got to make the adjustment. This is kind of the new norm for now. We all have got to make the adjustment and just do whatever you can to pass the time.”
The Pistons can’t even sit with a teammate to share a meal in the hotel ballrooms where food can be picked up now with the NBA further tightening protocols. Thet can’t leave the hotel except for games or sanctioned team activities and they can’t have friends come to visit them.
“A lot of the NFL’s problems came from their get-togethers, camaraderie meetings,” Casey said.
Almost all of the ways players would have passed the time on a week-plus road trip have been taken out of play.
“I’ve just been chilling out in the room, FaceTiming with my family,” Ellington said. “My kids keep me entertained a lot. Watching games around the league, following the news.”
“I keep reminding everyone, we’re in a pandemic,” Casey said. “This is one year you have to take a step back and look at things and take this virus seriously. It’s ruling right now.”
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'These are different times' – Pistons adjust to life on the road with usual pastimes no longer possible | Detroit Pistons - Pistons.com
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