How NBA adapted to change during COVID-19 pandemic
LOS ANGELES — In four decades working within the NBA, Rick Welts never had a day quite like March 11, 2020.
March 12 was shaping up to be just as odd too.
Less than 18 hours after the league suspended last season once Utah's Rudy Gobert became the first player to test positive for the coronavirus, the Golden State Warriors' president and chief operating officer convened an all-staff meeting. Inside an exclusive club lounge where the well-heeled typically mingled before watching games inside Chase Center, the team's months-old, $1.4 billion home along San Francisco's waterfront, Welts told team employees to go home and work from there until further notice.
They left with more questions than answers.
"I've been going to an NBA office for 43 seasons, that's where I'm comfortable," Welts said. "I could probably count on two hands the number of video conference meetings that I'd had in my life up until that point."
Operating at long distance is no longer the specialty of Warriors sharpshooter Stephen Curry alone. With a printed-out, hour-by-hour schedule as his daily guide, Welts now skips virtually
