Brooklyn Nets forward Michael Beasley has left the NBA's bubble at Walt Disney World Resort, league sources told ESPN. Sources have confirmed that Beasley tested positive for the coronavirus.
Beasley, 31, was signed by the Nets on July 9 as a substitute player to take part in the league's restart beginning later this month in Orlando because the Nets have seen their roster decimated by a combination of injuries and coronavirus cases ahead of the resumption of the season.
It remains unclear whether Beasley will eventually rejoin the team inside the bubble, sources said.
During a conference call with reporters last week, Nets general manager Sean Marks said that Beasley arrived at the team's hotel, passed a physical examination and would need to test negative for the coronavirus for six consecutive days before he would be cleared to join the team at practice.
The Nets, who were already going to be without stars Kevin Durant (Achilles) and Kyrie Irving (shoulder) because of injuries, also are without Spencer Dinwiddie, DeAndre Jordan and Taurean Prince after all three tested positive for the coronavirus and declined to participate in the restart.
In addition to Beasley, the Nets have signed veterans Tyler Johnson and Jamal Crawford. They also announced the addition of another forward, Lance Thomas, Tuesday afternoon to help fill out their roster, and signed rookie big man Donta Hall, who played in four games for the Detroit Pistons earlier this season before being released.
"We need to get these guys in front of our coaching staff and in front of each other," Marks said last week. "Somebody joked today [that] we were going to have to have them wearing name tags because it is a new roster."
Brooklyn's first game of the restart is against the Orlando Magic on July 31. The Nets are currently in seventh place in the Eastern Conference standings, half a game ahead of Orlando in eighth and six full games ahead of the ninth-place Washington Wizards. If the eighth-place team in either conference is no more than four games ahead of the ninth-place team once the eight seeding games are complete, there will be one or two play-in games to determine who will get the conference's eighth playoff spot.
Beasley, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2008 NBA draft, has played for seven teams in his 11-year NBA career. He last played for the Los Angeles Lakers during the 2018-19 season, appearing in 26 games and averaging 7.0 points per game.