Houston Rockets would be a wonderful NBA host for a regional restart

The Houston Rockets could be a large part of the NBA’s restart if the league decides to resume it’s schedule regionally. Why is that the case? Let’s dive.

The Houston Rockets re-opened their training facilities this past Monday, which is an important step with the full indication that the league will try to resume as normal of operations as possible without fans in the arena.

Who were the first attendees at Toyota Center? It turns out that P.J. Tucker, Isaiah Hartenstein and Bruno Caboclo were all available to participate in workouts and I’m sure that there will be more that will follow as time progresses.

The latest reports do allude to the fact that the league will be calling all players that are currently out of their respective markets to return/report so that way the full team will be available to work out together, to which I’m positive it would be under CDC guidelines in terms of social distancing.

So James Harden, Russell Westbrook and Eric Gordon get ready!

The news of this coming together is delightful for us sports fans as we can have some sense of normalcy — albeit a bit different — so we’ll be able to watch them compete live again. There’s no question that the utmost safety procedures will be followed to ensure that the restart remains a successful one.

Although Orlando, Fla. has emerged as the frontrunner for the NBA to have all players in an isolated bubble utilizing the facilities there, a regional format where games would partake in a cluster of cities still is on the table.

Houston has emerged as a candidate and with 1510 Polk being in a terrific location in proximity to the George R. Brown Convention Center, the Hilton-Americas and the Marriott Marquis, there’s no question that our city would be at the forefront of such a novel idea.

Although the hotels and the convention center are all interconnected with skywalks, it’s just a short walk of just merely a few blocks — and across the street from the Americas — to access Toyota Center for games.

It’s truly the perfect recipe for monitoring and the isolation of players. In my past travels, I noticed

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that Indianapolis has the same type of design on a larger scale. Because it’s typically harsh winter weather, most of the hotels, facilities are connected with a skywalk downtown and a player would not have to walk outside for any reason and be transported from one facility to another.

Banker’s Life Fieldhouse is in the midst of all of that propinquity and such a notion of a concept could work well up there.

As states begin to partially re-open for business, I’m sure Adam Silver has escalated his decision tree a bit to get things moving to get the multi-billion-dollar business that he oversees back up and running as much as possible.

Although we still have a ways to go with the recovery from this pandemic, I think this would be a shining moment for our city and hosting NBA games regionally would be a step in the right direction.

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But most importantly, it must be done safely with our thoughts still on those who have been affected by the virus itself. I wish nothing but a tremendous recovery for all.

It’s still up in the air what the NBA’s restart will look like but I’m looking forward to seeing my guys out on the hardwood soon.

Let’s do this…

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