Illawarra's scheduled clash with South East Melbourne on Thursday was postponed on game-day after several positive COVID tests were returned in Hawks camp.

It leaves the club's entire playing and coaching staff spending Christmas in isolation and a blockbuster New Years' Eve showdown with Sydney in serious jeopardy.

Investigations into the origins of the infection are ongoing, with positive tests coming to light late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning.

All players and staff are fully vaccinated, with the club working with health authorities to determine what isolation measures players will be subject to.

Currently people deemed close contacts in NSW must spend seven days in isolation and return a negative test on day six, while confirmed positive cases are required to isolate for 10 days.

Strictly adhered to, it would allow Hawks players deemed close contacts just one day's preparation before the club's next game against Sydney.

With the Hawks unlikely to be the last team affected by such an outbreak, Kordahi says the league will need to seek government exemptions allowing close contacts to train in short-term bubble conditions.

"You can't expect a professional athlete, after a seven-day sitting at home period, to get out and play in a professional sporting environment on day eight," Kordahi said.

"You're looking at a four-five day period to get your body right to play again. If we have to isolate for seven days, you're really looking 12-13 day turnaround time before players can get back out there and play.

"How do you run [a season] like that? As a league we're going to have to work on a situation where close contacts have the ability to train in a bubble.

"That gives us the ability to still isolate for seven days but, once a player returns a negative result, you can still hit the court on day eight or nine.

"We can't determine that ourselves, we need exemptions from NSW Health to allow teams deemed to be close contacts, but low-risk, to train in a closed environment."

It's the first postponement of the NBL regular season, though the Hawks preseason game against New Zealand in Wollongong in November was cancelled due to an outbreak in the Breakers camp.

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Another preseason game with the Kings was also called off after a positive test within the Hawks camp that was later deemed a "false positive."

The timing also continues a festive season curse for the club after it was forced to re-locate to Albury on Christmas Eve last year, not returning to Wollongong full-time until April.

With case numbers on a rapid climb amid easing restrictions, Kordahi said it would have been naive to think this season would be any less disrupted than the last.

"I said from the start that this year's going to be a lot harder than last year," he said.

"Last year we had no cases due to protocols. This year was going to be a lot tougher because we're opening our borders and opening our economy and we needed to.

"In doing that, we're going to be exposed to more people getting [the virus] and players are not immune, whether they're double-jabbed or not.

"You're going to get players getting it regularly, how do we manage that? That's the issue we've got and we need to have exemptions in place and we need to manoeuvre.

"It's definitely not what you want to hear, and the timing's not great for us, but the main thing is our players are healthy and we're looking after them.

"Player welfare's paramount, we just have to go with public health orders and roll with the punches. It's what we did last year and what we need to do this year a lot more."

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