In Thursday's game in Toronto against the Raptors, the Philadelphia 76ers listed guard Matisse Thybulle as ineligible to play, a sign that he could not play in the three road games of a potential playoff series between the two teams.
Last week, the four teams atop the conference -- Philadelphia, the Miami Heat, Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics -- were asked if they were eligible to play in games in Toronto, where players have to be vaccined in order to enter the country.
Boston and Philadelphia declined to comment, but Miami and Milwaukee did. He hasn't commented on whether or not he is protected against COVID-19.
The 76ers and Raptors will meet in the first round of the playoffs as the 4 and 5 seeds.
One of the NBA's best wing defenders, who turned 25 last month, is Thybulle, who has averaged 1.1 steals and 1.8 blocks in 25.4 minutes per game. Only seven players in the league average at least one steal and block per game, and all of them are playing more minutes than Thybulle.
The absence of Thybulle would be felt on the Philadelphia roster, which lacks much defensive talent outside of him and the potential All-Defensive Team candidate.
If Toronto beats Philadelphia on Thursday, it will go a long way towards getting a first round bye. The Celtics and Bucks are currently tied with Philadelphia and will be guaranteed of finishing third if the two teams win their final two games, against Indiana on Saturday and Detroit on Sunday.
Games 3 and 4 of the first round are likely to be played in Toronto, with the playoffs starting on April 16 and 17
The NBA has no choice but to operate under Canada's laws when it comes to unvaccinated players being unable to play in Toronto, according to commissioner Adam Silver.
We have no choice but to operate under the laws of the jurisdiction in which we play, Silver said at his news conference after this week's Board of Governors meetings in New York. They are state in other cases. There are Canadian issues that we have to comply with in Toronto. For any player who doesn't get vaccine, they know they are at risk of not being allowed to play in Toronto, because those rules are well known to all players. That is the facts that we are all going to have to operate under.
One must have a single shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine or a second shot of the two-dose vaccine to be considered fully-vaccinated in Canada. Unvaccinated players would need to get the one-dose vaccine in order to play in the playoffs.
The most prominent example of a player missing games due to being unvaccinated is Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving, who was unable to play in New York before the city changed its vaccination regulations recently to allow unvaccinated athletes.
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