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Ingles not totally happy with NBA bubble

3 minute read

Australia's Joe Ingles, Ben Simmons, Ryan Broekhoff, Patty Mills and Aron Baynes will compete for the NBA title in the Orlando bubble.

JOE INGLES of Australia.
JOE INGLES of Australia. Picture: James Worsfold/Getty Images

Joe Ingles will join his Utah Jazz in the NBA "bubble" in Florida for the resumption of the season, but he is not totally happy with the situation.

If the Jazz make it to the championship series, Ingles will be away from his pregnant wife Renae and three-year-old twins Jacob and Milla for three months.

Ingles believes every player on the 22 teams heading to Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando will be feeling some kind of trepidation.

"I am going to go and play," Ingles told Utah's The Zone radio station.

"Does it mean I'm 100 per cent comfortable with doing that?

"Not necessarily. I'm going to go and do the best for myself, my team and our organisation to represent us there in Orlando.

"I don't think anyone will be 100 per cent comfortable."

Australia will be well represented when the season resumes on July 30 with the Jazz playing the opening game against Zion Williamson's New Orleans Pelicans.

Ben Simmons and new Aussie recruit Ryan Broekhoff will suit up for the Philadelphia 76ers and Patty Mills' veteran leadership will be needed at injury-struck San Antonio Spurs.

Aron Baynes and his Phoenix Suns, with the worst record of any Western Conference team in the bubble, will likely have to win all eight regular-season games for any chance to make the playoffs.

Las Vegas bookmakers have LeBron James' Los Angeles Lakers as title favourites, just ahead of the Milwaukee Bucks and LA Clippers.

Simmons and Broekhoff are rated the best chance among the Aussies to win the title with the 76ers given the eighth-best odds.

The Jazz, despite sitting in fourth place in the tough Western Conference, are rated the 11th-best chance.

The Spurs and Suns are given next to no chance.

The potential impact of COVID-19 taking out key players from teams, the odd set-up of 22 teams locked inside the gates of Walt Disney World for months and the fact teams have not played since the season was suspended on March 11, has the potential to produce a shock winner.

It was Ingles' Jazz teammate Rudy Gobert's positive COVID-19 test 3.5 months ago before a game in Oklahoma City that shut the season down.

The Jazz were forced to stay in the visitors' locker room for hours and that was where Ingles endured his first test for the virus.

It involved a swab deep into his nose.

The Australian said the NBA's latest tests do not go up as far, but he is still not a fan.

"I absolutely hate it," he said.

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