The NBA changed our world seven days ago, and so look for the NBA to lead us back
If you are looking for the moment it all changed, go with this: 7:14 p.m. Central Time
That is the minute when the NBA called the players from both the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder off the floor and back into the locker room in OKC. Just one week ago.
Since 7:14 p.m. on Wednesday, March 11, 2020, the last week has covered approximately 2020 years worth of events.
Unlike 9/11, the space shuttle exploding or even when Magic Johnson announced he was HIV positive, there is no universally agreed start to the age of the coronavirus.
While there is a Patient Zero, or in this case a Bat Zero, we all have a different moment for when “it” started, and our pre-coronavirus daily routine stopped.
The NBA led us here, and it’s a safe bet they’ll lead us out of it.
Let it be known the Jazz and Thunder contributed to the world a moment greater than Stockton-to-Malone, or a Russell Westbrook sneer.
At 7:40 p.m., their game last Wednesday was postponed. At 8:27 p.m., Jazz forward Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19. At 8:31 p.m., ESPN NBA information savant Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the season was suspended.
Once a player tested positive for the virus, we entered a new era. Since that moment games, sports, schools, gyms, restaurants, bars, museums, zoos, casinos and malls have all steadily closed.
We all want to know when we will re-open, and when the games will start again.
“Some questions are unanswerable,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said in a conference call on Wednesday. “’I don’t know’ is a perfectly acceptable answer.”
If you are looking for an answer, start with NBA commissioner Adam Silver. Just as the NBA was the leader in shutting it all down, The Association will be at the forefront of when we all return.
No major sport features as much skin-on-skin contact as a basketball game. Other sports, like football, have contact but when it comes to skin against skin, basketball is your leader.
Then there is the problem of the ball. Everyone touches the ball with their hands.
The NBA’s Board of Governors met with the former U.S. surgeon general on Tuesday, Wojnarowski reported. The message left the NBA owners with the hope that play could re-start ... before July.
As evidenced by the last week, everything changes fast and what is definitive now changes in 10 minutes.
“I can only speak for myself. I am looking at health experts to guide us. Period,” Sankey said. “I am also interested in what other sport organizations do right now.”
That includes overseas, among sports few Americans have ever watched, or know a thing about.
The Australian Football League announced on Wednesday (U.S. time), that it will proceed with the start of league play on Thursday night (Aussie time).
It does so while acknowledging this could all be stopped at any point. The commissioner of the AFL, Gillon McLachlan, said the league is trying to protect jobs, and wants to play their “153-game journey.”
There will be no fans in the stands. Each quarter has been shortened from 20 minutes to 16.
“We simply cannot stand still,” McLachlan said via 7 News in Sydney, Australia. “We must go forward day by day, listening to the advice and making the best decisions for our industry.”
He also said the league wants to be a model “for our community and being leaders in this crisis for our country.”
With increased global pressure to reduce the time and space we spend around strangers, it’s hard to see this going for too long.
Since Gobert tested positive for the virus, teammate Donovan Mitchell did as well. Four members of the Brooklyn Nets tested positive, including All-Star Kevin Durant.
Elsewhere within the world of sports, multiple prospects for the New York Yankees, as well a player for the NHL’s Ottawa Senators have all tested positive. Players and managers in the English Premier League have contracted it as well.
The Masters, marathons and March Madness have all either been postponed or canceled. The UFC continues, with President Dana White pressing on with events without fans.
MLB is now saying mid-May at the earliest for its Opening Day. NFL training camps are far enough away that it has not had to address whether any of its games will be affected.
There is no certain time for anything, only uncertainty.
With a game that is played indoors and players who come in contact frequently, the barometer will be basketball. The green-light will have to be issued by the NBA.
When Silver and the NBA announce their return, so will the rest.
We may not agree on what time this all started, but we will know whenever the NBA tips off, the hiatus will be over.
