Sixers game against Oklahoma City Thunder postponed due to contact tracing for Philly

The Sixers’ scheduled game against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday has been postponed due to contact tracing, the first Philadelphia game to be wiped out in the wake of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

In an NBA press release, the league announced that it was the Philadelphia roster that caused the game to be postponed, due to contact tracing this is still ongoing as of this point.

“Due to the continued search for contacts within the Sixers, the team does not have the eight eligible players required to proceed with the scheduled game against the Thunder,” the NBA said in a press release Sunday night.

A source from the team who spoke to PhillyVoice on Sunday night said the Sixers have no new positive tests to report for the team, the only good news in the short term. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported shortly after that the contact tracing is a result of Saturday’s meeting with the Memphis Grizzlies, so the Sixers certainly haven’t come out of the woods on this one yet. With the exposure being recent, the Sixers will have to wait and see if any positive tests emerge for the team in the coming week.

Things appear to be changing fairly quickly, and Philadelphia’s pre-game injury report, submitted to the league by the 5 p.m. deadline, had just four players ruled out for the Thunder meeting, along with all four players. (Joel Embiid, Seth Curry, Mike Scott, Vincent Poirier) scheduled for absences before the weekend. The Sixers and Thunder were preparing as if they were about to play on Sunday, with the Sixers on the ground and warming up shortly before the league announced the postponement.

Former Memphis opponent the Minnesota Timberwolves has had several players tested positive in recent days after meeting with Memphis on Wednesday, postponing a game with the Grizzlies scheduled for Friday. A positive test for one of the Memphis players who showed up for Saturday’s meeting with Philly would be enough to throw things into chaos.

This seems to be what happened. In a Sunday night report from the Memphis Grizzlies, the team announced that Jonas Valanciunas, who played in Saturday night’s game against Philly, was excluded from Monday’s meeting against Phoenix after entering health and safety protocol. of the NBA.

The Sixers will play next Wednesday against the Boston Celtics in the front half of a two-game set with their division rivals, although that game (and the two-game set) is certainly in jeopardy depending on the current situation. When we have more details on the nature of the carry over, we will update this story with more information.

This story is developing.

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