THE NATIONAL BASKETBALL PLAYERS ASSOCIATION knew it needed to step in and help.
As the NBA has become more international in recent decades, its ranks have grown in kind. About a quarter of players on opening night rosters -- 108 of 450 -- hail from 38 countries and territories other than the United States. Many of those countries, such as Spain and France, were ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic well before it slammed the United States, where the death toll surpassed 100,000 on May 27.
Many of these players first experienced COVID-19 as it affected friends and family in their home countries before it spread in the U.