Shams Charania of The Athletic announced via Twitter that the Thunder-76ers game would be postponed for Sunday night.
The reasoning for Sunday’s postponement relates to the Philadelphia 76ers side of things, and the NBA’s new contract tracing system. Originally, the 76ers had 10 players ready to go with five of their guys ruled out due to injuries or prior tracing from past games.
The 76ers intentions were to finish their second game in their back-to-back set with a win on Sunday. However; that chance never emerged as NBA officials deemed that Grizzlies center Jonas Valanciunas, who the 76ers played on Saturday, needed to enter the leagues health and safety protocol immediately. The league’s tracing through Valanciunas trickled down to multiple Sixers players, leaving the team “short eight players” as ESPN‘s Adrian Wojnarowski put it.
For Oklahoma City, this is the second time they have run into game postponement. Their season opener at Houston was wiped after the Rockets failed to surface eight players, and the same situation occurred Sunday night.
Due to the game’s postponement, the Thunder will have an extra day of rest before packing their luggage to face the Nuggets (6-6) in the Mile-High City.