San Antonio Spurs’ Marco Belinelli Gives Room Tour From NBA Bubble Resort
The San Antonio Spurs officially arrived in Orlando, Florida on Thursday ahead of the NBA season restart. Other teams have arrived as well at different times in the past week. The players and staff are all required to stay quarantined for 48 hours until they’ve had two negative tests for COVID-19. Meanwhile, various players are showing off their accommodations, including the Spurs’ Marco Belinelli, and his room doesn’t seem all that bad.
Marco Belinelli Shares NBA Bubble Hotel Room Tour
Marco Belinelli, a member of the Spurs for the past two seasons, and three prior seasons is giving fans a glimpse of how his stay will be at the Orlando bubble site. The 34-year-old Spurs shooting guard and small forward posted a 26-second video clip in which he gives a smartphone tour of his room. That includes a look at the bed he’ll sleep in, television, and other items inside a relatively spacious hotel room.
The Spurs guard also shows the view from his room. While some NBA players have apparently shown views of the parking lot outside their hotel rooms, Belinelli’s is a lot nicer with a gorgeous waterfront view.
San Antonio is one of several teams staying at the Yacht Club resort on the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex. Other hotels where teams, players, and staff are staying include Gran Destino Tower at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort and Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort.
Some viewers probably noticed the NBA “swag bag” during Belinelli’s tour. Inside that NBA gift bag is reportedly an Oxygen meter for testing, portable speaker, Bluetooth keyboard, Amazon Fire TV Stick, and an NBA blanket, along with other goodies, per Sun-Sentinel.
In addition to the room, Belinelli also showed off the ID bracelet players are wearing at the NBA’s ESPN/Disney bubble. The bracelet is similar to the MagicBand guests use at Disney to get into their hotel rooms, pay for rides or food, and use as a fast pass on attractions at the parks.
Belinelli, Spurs Preparing for NBA Games
Once players and personnel make it through the initial 48-hour quarantine and COVID-19 testing period, they can begin to practice. Eventually, the Spurs will participate in scrimmages against three other NBA teams. This will help them get reacquainted with basketball since they’ve had a long time away from the court.
Each team’s official restart schedule features eight games. It begins for the San Antonio Spurs on July 31 against the Sacramento Kings. The goal is to win as much as possible to either take over the No. 8 seed or force a play-in game against whoever is holding that seed once all teams have played their schedules. A play-in game happens if a team is within four games of the No. 8 seed.
Belinelli is likely to continue his key reserve role in Orlando. For the season that abruptly ended in mid-March, he’d been averaging 5.8 points, 1.7 rebounds, and 1.2 assists in about 15 minutes per game. However, he’d averaged eight more minutes of game time and double-digit scoring in the prior season with the Spurs. He’s also a veteran in the league and member of the 2013-14 championship team.
San Antonio is still considered a major longshot to take over the No. 8 seed in Orlando, as there are several other teams who seem to have a better shot. However, head coach Gregg Popovich opted to go to Orlando to coach the team there.
The lines.com website ranks Pop as one of the top coaches in the game of all time, and top three right now. Only Mike Budenhozer of the Milwaukee Bucks ranks above him.
With decent accommodations, a roster that is hungry to play, and having Pop to guide them, it should be fun to see how far this Spurs team can go in Orlando.