So Long, 141-Day Wait. Welcome Back, NBA: A Definitive Recap Of The Return To Play

Before this article starts jotting down the path of events leading up to the league’s resumption in chronological order, do me a favor. Breathe a sigh of relief tonight as you wind down and turn on your television set, tuning into the TNT network to see everyone’s favorite TV uncles in Shaq, Ernie Johnson, Chuck, and Kenny.

For your patience, you, the reader, have surely earned the treat of witnessing professional basketball on a Turner Broadcasting network again in 2020, for the opportunity to view something so taken for granted in previous times will serve as such a saving grace and distracting agent from what’s going on in the country and world.

Wednesday, March 11, 2020. A date lathered in infamy. The day the world stopped turning, for all basketball fans.

Ticket sales postponed and Mass evacuations of stadiums in mere minutes, with the league’s tumultuous mountains being tectonically shifted by one tweet:

“The National Basketball Association will suspend its season, effective immediately.”

The numbness and uncertainty of sports returning in full force was felt in a variety of ways amongst all franchises, and more questions arose than prominent answers. For a season that is so narrowed down to its final several weeks, just what was to happen to playoff-qualifying organizations if the year was to be canned altogether? And, will we ever return to a shroud of normalcy that includes fans at some point (when it’s safe)?

It took 141 days to come up with that definitive answer. But we can say it with confidence now: The NBA is BACK.

In the time-lapse of four months, we’d never expect hoops to be back in the extent of a socially-distant bubble in Orlando, Florida, and Commissioner Adam Silver should be first in line to receive some of the good words on his work to keep the wheels rolling on such a climactic NBA season that no one wanted to see abolished abruptly.

It’s been a long road to get here, so take a trip down memory lane, chronicling the timeline from the start of the suspension to the first tip-off tonight at 6:30 p.m. ET on TNT, as well as documenting our experiences as NBA fans and beat writers of the game here at Sneaker Reporter.

March 11: During the afternoon of March 11, multiple media outlets commented on the cheeky, foolish behavior of Jazz center Rudy Gobert as the French Rejection decided to make a mockery of the oncoming COVID-19 pandemic crisis by patting several recording devices and phones owned by interviewers during a press conference, only to test positive for the Coronavirus. That ensuing night, medical officials run onto the hardwood of the Chesapeake Energy Arena with pace, urgently persuading coaches and referees to cancel the contest between the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder, for fear of Utah’s infection possibility of the Thunder if they were to play them in a 60-minute game. They comply and tell the multitudinous crowd inside the ‘Peake to leave in an orderly manner.

That night, ripples were felt throughout the league as everyone who received the news on their mobile devices inside arenas across the country registered what could probably be impending doom as it related to their favorite team’s 2019-20 campaign. During ESPN’s broadcast of a Dallas Mavericks home game, lead commentator Ryan Ruocco and color commentator Doris Burke sign off for what would be the “last time in a while” in their words.

From a worldly perspective, spectator sports had been put on the backburner as professional soccer leagues shuttered fans from their stadiums as their athletic competitions continued.

The second slot of primetime action after Dallas’ home victory featured the Kings and Pelicans, and as follows, the league decided to postpone that game too. The suspension was enforced just an hour later.

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March 19: Media members and fans alike speculated whether or not if players can stay prepared for a potential resumption with practice facilities still being open up until the eighth day of the season’s suspension. Then, commissioner Silver decided that cleaning protocols were too cloudy to sort out, so further action to close all team facilities was taken. Players would have to find different ways to get shots up, while also keeping their conditioning in check.

Also, a bunch of players took to social media to flex their editing (and dance) skills with a plethora of “Tik Tok” videos. Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Celtics forward Jayson Tatum, Grizzlies rookie guard Ja Morant, Sixers rookie forward Matisse Thybulle and many others got rid of their boredom with creative short clips of them going viral performing signature dance routines or flashy edits popularized by the app.

As a result of this time at home during the nationwide quarantine, ESPN took the initiative to start up an NBA 2K Player’s Tournament, which was won by Phoenix suns star guard Devin Booker. Following that 2K tournament, ESPN decided to keep the live entertainment angle going with a tournament of the shooting game H.O.R.S.E., which was split into two weeks with the winner being Ohio native Mike Conley Jr. of the Utah Jazz.

April breezes by, and fans and players both question ESPN and ABC’s scheduling of Michael Jordan’s “The Last Dance” docuseries, which detailed the 1997-98 season of the soon-to-be three-peating dynasty known as the Chicago Bulls, which was set for release in June after when the NBA Finals was initially supposed to happen. Even LeBron James pleaded the television network to give fans the documentary early, considering that we didn’t have much else to do. And so, they caved in.

Little tidbits of history concealed for nearly 22 years were released to the public, and this ten-part documentary was enjoyed by its viewers as if it was a regular sporting event. So much so, that The Last Dance was the most viewed sports documentary in the history of the broadcasting company.

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April 29: All the questions about the possibilities surrounding a return to play were rocketed with a brand new argument put on the table: an isolated bubble in a secluded area to limit contraction of the coronavirus. Of course, this met criticism at first as this meant players would have to leave the safety of their homes to travel to an undisclosed location to continue their season. There wasn’t even a destination concrete enough for the bubble’s location.

But, lo and behold, Adam Silver rounded up all of his prospect cities, studied the cases of COVID-19 in each town, and boiled the debate into two destinations: Las Vegas and Orlando.

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May 8: Chris Paul, the president of the National Basketball Players’ Association, held a joint meeting – er, Zoom call – with commissioner Silver pertaining to the comfortability levels of the players if they were to be on board with getting back to playing the game they love.

Just like every other major decision that is made, skepticism still raced through the minds of players who were concerned with not just their safety, but the safety of the families of these athletes. Ultimately, the leaders of the NBPA, Commissioner Silver and the NBA Board of Governors reached a general consensus that said players wanted to keep the seasonal ship from sinking, deciding to finish the season and postseason if proper health protocols were to be carried out.

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May 20: Orlando is confirmed to be the bubble sight of the resumed season, with a return date TBA. While there was a flurry of prognosticators who wanted this season canceled due to the worldwide health threat, optimism grew like a rose in the spring the moment Adam Silver got the confirmation to keep the season going inside a secluded part of Florida. And where would there resumed season commence? In none other than the “Greatest Place on Earth”, Walt Disney World, and specifically at the ESPN Wide World of Sports at Disney Springs. Players wanting to chase a championship were ecstatic, while onlookers of the game on the sidelines could not wait to see their teams do exactly that.

And then, the grotesque eight minutes and 46 seconds during the afternoon of May 25th happened.

A slight misunderstanding of a minuscule counterfeit $20 bill led to the unjust murder of George Floyd on the curb of a Minnesota grocery store, inciting massive violent protests and profits of rage that ravaged the city of Minneapolis, leaving it in a boundless blaze. And whilst non-violent protests carried the truths of necessary changes to the American criminal justice system, cities across America shared in the same dismay of the state of rising fascism and authoritarian rule that’s existed over Black America for the 401 years they’ve been on the North American continent like a brooding cloud.

Players didn’t just take to social media; they took to the streets.

This time – enough was enough.

NBA stars from all teams – Jaylen Brown of the Celtics, Malcolm Brogdon of the Pacers, Kyrie Irving of the Nets, and a continuous list of players – voiced not only their displeasure of the governmental inaction to provide equal justice for the killers of Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, and countless others but their viewpoints of the season’s resumption and if it really took away from the attention and the traction that the Black Lives Matter movement had profusely gained in such a diminutive amount of time.

Lakers backup center Dwight Howard stood at the forefront of the argument, saying that basketball would detract attention from what was occurring around the country.

“No basketball, until we get things resolved,” Howard said.

Many other NBA athletes agreed with the sentiment, and for a while, it seemed like there was a huge pause on a return to NBA action due to the social justice outreach of the players, who realized that the NBA product (that’s 85-90% African-American) would be a shell of itself without Black talent.

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May 29: That pause would turn into a hard play, as Adam Silver shook up the sporting world with a massive “We’re Back” announcement. Silver proclaimed that hoops would (then) officially tip-off on July 31. That date would then shift to official tip-offs occurring a day earlier on July 30.

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June 4: 22 teams were then announced to be confirmed as bubble entrants; the 16 playoff-qualified squads in both the East (9 teams) and West (13 teams), as well as the on-the-bubble (pun not intended) teams out West vying for the final playoff spots – New Orleans, Portland, San Antonio, Phoenix. On the Eastern side, Washington was the only non-playoff team announced to join the bubble in Orlando.

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June 5: The 22-team format would get ratified and approved by the NBPA. It would essentially include three tune-up preseason games, and eight regular-season games to determine seeding for the playoffs. For the outlying teams, the ultimatum of getting within four games of the eighth seed meant a play-in tournament, where the winner gets a postseason berth.

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June 23: COVID-19 testing took place as players and organizations gathered traveling parties to take the trip to Orlando. However, some players, like Lakers guard Avery Bradley, Suns forward Kelly Oubre Jr., and various Brooklyn Nets like DeAndre Jordan, Nico Claxton, Spencer Dinwiddie, Wilson Chandler, and Taurean Prince would say no to the return, meaning new players like free agent Tyler Johnson and the legendary Jamal Crawford would join forces with Caris LeVert for a new-look Nets faction. The NBA also agrees for players to wear social justice messages on the backs of their jerseys.

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July 7-29: Players arrive in Orlando, and immediately get settled into their many hotel rooms on the luxurious Disney Springs property. As the NBA Bubble Life Twitter and Instagram pages documented the daily activities of the campus, which basically looked like a humongous summer camp comprised of fishing lakes, player lounges, Disney attractions, pools, golf courses, and more.

Fans got a clear glimpse of what this abridged brand of NBA Basketball would look like during scrimmages during the final week of July. Surprisingly enough, the optics and audio of the bubble were more than enough to appease the average NBA fan.

And that’s the gist of it when it comes to the return to professional play. We’re in the present day now, with the game between the Pelicans and Jazz set to tip-off in a few.

So sit back, and enjoy yourself as you palate competitive basketball that counts toward something tonight at 6:30 p.m. ET. Hoops are back. Let’s do this thing.