Mike Conley Has Left The Bubble For The Birth Of His Son And Will Miss Much Of The Denver Series

For NBA players and their families, July, August, and September are typically great times for them to welcome a new child as the players are in the offseason and there’s little difficulty in having significant time to spend with a newborn. However, with the shift in schedule due to the bubble restart, this year players who may have tried to plan wisely for growing their families will not only have to miss games to be there for the birth of their child, but miss additional time quarantining once they arrive back in Orlando.

Dennis Schröder missed the back half of the Thunder’s seeding round games for the birth of his child, but has returned to Orlando and should be ready for their series with the Houston Rockets. Gordon Hayward will be leaving the bubble later in the postseason for the same reason, and on Sunday, the Utah Jazz announced Mike Conley was headed home to Columbus, Ohio for the birth of his child.

The first hope, of course, is that the latest member of the Conley family arrives with both mom and baby happy and healthy. For the Jazz, it means a team already without a leading offensive weapon in Bojan Bogdanovic will now enter a series with the Denver Nuggets short their starting point guard — who had been playing some of his best basketbal of the season in Orlando. There is no timetable for Conley’s return to the Jazz, as he’ll remain in Ohio with his wife until he’s comfortable returning, and while he’ll likely continue to be tested, it would require four days of quarantine at Disney before he could play again.

The Jazz and Nuggets will play four times over the next week, with a potential Game 5 being next Tuesday and Game 6 next Thursday. It’s possible Conley would be back for those “if necessary” games, but Utah likely won’t be banking on having their star point guard for this series. That means an even greater scoring and facilitating load will fall on the shoulders of Donovan Mitchell, with more quality minutes needed from the likes of Jordan Clarkson, Emmanuel Mudiay, and others.