The NBA has been critiqued on multiple occasions by ESPN's Brian Windhorst and other prominent media members for the lack of transparency during the COVID-19 pandemic. Adam Silver didn't conduct a press conference for several weeks and now media members within the bubble have indicated their access to cover the NBA's restart has been restricted.

"The NBA is really locking down with information," said Windhorst on his podcast. "I guess it's understood because of the pandemic there's just the nature of privacy, but this is unusual. 

"You know at Summer League, which is the only thing comparable to this, the media is permitted to be in the spaces where the players move. Everybody is being tested every day. It is not an issue of health and safety. It's an issue of locking down. I mean there's no other way to say it, they're locking down."

Malika Andrews relayed a story on where she's allowed to stand for live reports for Sports Center.

"An NBA security person approached [Andrews' producer] and really bluntly and somewhat rudely was questioning why she was there and when she explained, he didn't believe her," said Andrews. "So NBA staff had to come over and kind of defuse the entire situation. 

"But I say that because at the very end of that interaction, he said 'I don't appreciate this back and forth that we've had.' And we said 'We don't really appreciate it either.' He said 'I'm just trying to ensure players' privacy.'

"I said 'Kind sir, I completely understand, but so much of what I do is in spite of players' privacy.' Because we have people protecting players' privacy and people covering the league in some ways in spite of players' privacy, that is creating an inherent conflict, if you will, that the league is now having to address because what do you have access to? They have kind of decided to really backpedal what is exactly we're allowed to see under the name of 'players need to be able to live their life.'"

Teams have also been secretive about which players are even in the bubble.

"I would like to know who is actually freaking there," said Windhorst. "The league, quite frankly, has been acting a fascist, no, I'm not going to say that. The league, quite frankly, has been acting completely opaquely. I don't understand why. I understand if a player doesn't want to have it known he has contracted the virus, or if he has to leave, why he has to leave. That is fine. But it is completely reasonable, under the circumstances that we have, whether you could say whether a player is there or not. For the last two weeks, we have not been able to find that out. And it's gotten even tougher. Somebody has to call the league on it and that somebody is going to me. I'll be watching very closely how much is available."

Over the weekend, Chris Haynes of Yahoo! Sports and TNT described a similar experience to Andres.

"Over the course of the two weeks, restrictions were put in place out of the blue," wrote Haynes. "A few areas we were allowed to frequent were abruptly off limits. Scenes we were told we could shoot were nixed. The goalposts kept moving and it became frustrating at times, but in fairness, I was a test case and the league was learning the lay of the land and trying to implement the safest health and privacy measures possible on the fly."