LaVine, Brown Jr. in protocol amid Bulls outbreakon December 12, 2021 at 10:28 pm

The Chicago Bulls‘ team-wide COVID-19 outbreak continued to spread further on Sunday, when Zach LaVine and Troy Brown Jr. entered the NBA’s health and safety protocols.

Their additions, announced by the team, bring the Bulls’ total to nine players in the league’s COVID-19 protocols since the start of the month.

LaVine and Brown join DeMar DeRozan, Coby White, Javonte Green, Matt Thomas, Derrick Jones Jr., Ayo Dosunmu and Stanley Johnson as players sidelined right now. Bulls broadcasters Stacey King and Bill Wennington are also at home in isolation due to the league’s protocols. Players who enter health and safety protocols must quarantine for 10 days or until they return two negative PCR tests within a 24-hour window.

The Bulls were off Sunday and do not play again until they host the Detroit Pistons on Tuesday night, but the team had not heard anything to indicate that game was in jeopardy of being postponed.

The NBA mandates a minimum of eight players for each team before postponing a game during team outbreaks, and Chicago currently has nine players available on its roster, including its two two-way players and Alfonzo McKinnie, who signed a 10-day contract Friday.

McKinnie was signed after the Bulls were granted extra roster spots due to the league’s hardship exception and the Bulls are eligible to continue adding players by that provision. However, the team’s outbreak has been so widespread that even one of the players they signed as a hardship exception, Johnson, has already landed in the health and safety protocols.

Both White and Green will have completed their mandatory 10-day isolation after a positive test last week, so they could be eligible to rejoin the team for Tuesday’s game. White is returning to the team’s facility Sunday for the first time since testing positive for COVID-19 on Dec. 1, sources told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

Because the Bulls have positive cases, their players are required to test every day. Current guidelines don’t require players on many teams to be tested daily. Players who are vaccinated — but have not received a booster — will be tested on game days beginning Friday. Unvaccinated players are required to test daily, and Johnson & Johnson vaccinated players without a booster were required to begin gameday testing earlier this month.

The NBA says 97% of its players are vaccinated, and sources told Wojnarowski more than 60% of players have received the booster.

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