The Whiteboard: NBA Basketball in the time of COVID

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In 24 days, the first game of the resumed 2019-20 NBA season is set to tip off. It will be a Thursday evening in the Eastern Time Zone. The game will be played in an empty arena (perhaps “gym” is more appropriate?). It will feature the Utah Jazz and the New Orleans Pelicans.

The Jazz will probably be starting Rudy Gobert, who was the first NBA player to test positive for COVID-19, the finger being slowly drawn from the dike which let the floodwaters pour through. The Jazz will also, probably, be starting Donovan Mitchell, who tested positive right after Gobert and almost certainly contracted the virus from his teammate — a fact which led to fractured chemistry that hasn’t really been tested on the court or fully exposed to public scrutiny. The Jazz will be trying to take the first steps towards an unexpected championship run, a goal that seemed exceedingly plausible, if not probable, just over 12 months ago when they completed a trade for veteran guard Mike Conley.

The Pelicans will probably be starting Zion Williamson. He will be playing in his 20th regular-season NBA game, having just celebrated his 20th birthday. Williamson will take the court having already secured a place in the imagination of NBA fans and in the reality of the league’s marketing materials. He will be attempting to lead his young team on an eight-game run that allows them to supplant the Memphis Grizzlies as the eighth-seed in the Western Conference playoffs, setting up a first-round series with LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers.

In the 28 hours after that game tips off, 14 other teams will play their first game of the NBA’s new surreality. The Lakers will play the Clippers, without Avery Bradley. The Nets will play the Magic, without DeAndre Jordan and possibly without Spencer Dinwiddie as well — both players have tested positive for COVID-19. As yet unknown players will also probably be missing from other rosters, not playing in other games, either attempting to recover from COVID-19 infections or opting out for fear of exposing themselves. All of these games, and the empty gyms in which they are played, will be available for viewing on national television or League Pass.

Whatever happens from there will be treated as exceptionally other. In the historical record of professional basketball, asterisks will abound. The champion will almost certainly be adorned with one, as will any individual records broken or personal failings revealed. The games will still be dissected and analyzed but they will be held differently — for some, held at a distance, for others, embraced even more tightly. Surrounding this vaguely familiar coverage will be a steady soundtrack of protest. They will point to the surge of cases in the surrounding communities, a surge that has probably not peaked yet and even if immediate and draconian measures are taken, won’t subside until long after the NBA season has resumed. They will say that the risks are too great and that this is all hubris. Whether that chorus is right or wrong, it seems clear now that their wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.

Whether for money or for love, for distraction or for symbolic unity, for fear of which unknown is worse, for all of that and more, NBA basketball is coming.

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