NBA News: Toronto Raptors considering temporary move to Newark amid Covid restrictions

The 2020-21 NBA season is a logistical nightmare. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic means that public gatherings and travel is still restricted. After deciding that playing 70-82 regular-season games for a couple of months in a bubble is not feasible, the league is left with only one option, play games the usual way. The Toronto Raptors are doing their part to make things easier by moving closer to the action.

Out of 30 NBA teams, the Toronto Raptors is the only NBA team that's not based in the United States, but in neighboring Canada. While Toronto is one of Canada's southernmost cities, it's not the northernmost NBA city. Portland in the west, Boston in the East, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, is even further north than Toronto.

The league hopes to reduce risk by reducing travel for teams. How exactly they would do this while maintaining a fair number of games has not been disclosed.

According to RealGM, the Raptors are contemplating on moving to Newark in New Jersey, making them close to New York City, Brooklyn (also in New York), Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington D.C.

However, Toronto's current location is already near Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Chicago.

The Raptors are also considering moving to Nashville, Tennessee, or Tampa Bay, Florida.

There are many other proposals on implementing the next season, such as reduced capacity arenas, open-air arenas, and mini-bubbles. All of them are being studied by the NBA together with health professionals, local government officials, and other experts.

Early in the pandemic, NBA players were tagged by infectious disease professionals as "superspreaders." This is due to the number of people they are physically in contact with and the amount of travel they do in any given week.

In a normal regular season, NBA players play 2-3 times a week in arenas filled with thousands of people. They would also need to play 41 games in other cities (except for the pair of Los Angeles and New York teams).

If the Toronto Raptors decide to move their home arena for the next season, they would be losing out on ticket sales from their home crowd.