There are risks associated with restarting the NBA season amid a global pandemic after four months of inactivity.
Jayson Tatum and others apparently want to be covered for those risks.
The Boston Celtics star has joined Donovan Mitchell, De'Aaron Fox, Kyle Kuzma and Bam Adebayo in seeking NBA-backed insurance policies that would protect against career-threatening injuries when they resume play in Orlando, ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported Saturday.
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Those five players all are eligible for contract extensions after this season as members of the 2017 NBA Draft class. Tatum appears on track to fetch a maximum contract extension, so he'd be leaving hundreds of millions of dollars on the table if he were to suffer a serious injury in the NBA "bubble" this summer.
Tatum and his teammates still have time to work off the rust before the projected July 30 restart date, and the 22-year-old was spotted working out at Boston's team facility last week. That said, players haven't seen game action since March 11 -- essentially the equivalent of a full offseason -- and won't have much ramp-up before being thrust back into a playoff-like atmosphere.
Many players seemingly share these health concerns, and some even are considering not traveling to Orlando to play in the 22-team format.
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Tatum and his fellow young stars had a phone call Friday with the NBA Players Association to discuss a potential insurance policy, per Wojnarowski, who noted an insurance policy for a max-contract player like Tatum could cost the league up to $500,000.
Perhaps that financial peace of mind will ease players' concerns as they enter an unprecedented situation.