The NBA, Sporting World, And The Coronavirus: Now What?

In mere hours, the sporting world has been frozen still, as just about all operations in any league imaginable have been put on hold as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 anxieties that have paralyzed Earth as a whole.

The Coronavirus, now classified as a global pandemic that has caused hundreds of thousands (near millions, at this point) to be tested positive for the disease, recently caused the NBA, NHL, NCAA, MLS, and any other sporting league you can think of to abruptly pause and drop everything as the world tries to find an equipped-enough answer to combat this disease. It’s in our backyard now, and pertinent as we’ve never seen before to our athletics side of the pond in the US as it’s been reported that two members of the Utah Jazz in star guard Donovan Mitchell and reigning Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert have tested positive for the Coronavirus.

so, there’s a lot that’s just transpired in the past couple of hours, so I’ll get into the skinny of it all:

A video clip posted to Twitter recently went viral Wednesday night, showing Gobert playfully touching mics, recorders, and iPhones in an effort to casually downplay the spread of the virus that has not only touched down here in the states but has already claimed the lives of thousands of citizens around the world. And as he was reportedly joking around in the locker room, touching his teammates in Mitchell and others, just hours prior to their road game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, he and fellow teammate Emmanuel Mudiay were scratched from Wednesday’s contest due to “illnesses”.

Seconds before tip-off, a medical professional was seen sprinting towards the officials set to monitor Wednesday night’s game, and before they could even pick up the game ball, were adamantly instructed to seize all basketball activity, for the fear that the airborne Coronavirus could touch base in a public forum packed with over 18,203 people.

Upon receiving news of the cancellation, the Thunder Public Announcer addressed the fans to leave the Chesapeake Energy Arena in “an orderly fashion.” Accordingly, both Jazz and Thunder players and coaches were quarantined in their respective locker rooms for more than three hours, and all left on their team buses back to their hotels in Oklahoma City.

The postponement of the game sent shockwaves throughout the league, to put it short as possible. There were supposed to be 12 teams sticking to the script of continuing their season and however many 20+ games left last night, with six games taking place. Three were already happening in the 7:00-7:30 slots, with the last three taking place between the times of 8:00 to 10:30. As the Mavericks and Nuggets game concluded on ESPN, cameras immediately cut to the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, California as the Kings were scheduled to go up against the Ninth-seeded New Orleans Pelicans.

And just like the Thunder game, this game too would witness the same fate. Players were escorted off of the floor, Kings fans and a flurry of Pelicans fans were told to exit the premises and in a matter of minutes, headlines sputtered out of all news mediums like wildfire, and commissioner Silver halted all basketball activities, officially suspending all NBA play for an undisclosed amount of time.

Now, all five teams that have played the Utah Jazz since last Wednesday during their Eastern Conference road trip (that includes the Cleveland Cavaliers, New York Knicks, Boston Celtics, Detroit Pistons, and Toronto Raptors) have to test all of their players and have them self-quarantined due to their contact with the Jazz team. What’s worse, we don’t know the severity of how the COVID-19 virus spread, as all teams mentioned have had contact with just about every other team in the NBA.

Recently diagnosed with the virus, Mitchell took to Instagram to express his gratitude toward the well wishes from the sporting community and Jazz fans across the world.

In what could go down as one of the most bizarre nights in NBA history, one has to wonder if this season was all for naught, and whether or not the playoffs will concurrently take place before the end of spring or summer. Of course, that is, if a cure and solution will be found in time to combat this worldwide problem that’s seemingly brought nations and continents to their knees.

Problem is, there’s no telling when, or in an even worse predicament, if, that will happen soon enough.

This is an unprecedented situation that has caused the collective eyes and ears of the globe to check-in and pay attention to the news headlines, and it hasn’t just stopped at conceding all basketball operations in the most tuned-into basketball league in the world.

Quite literally, the rest of sporting operations in all of Europe, Asia, North America, and South America have all been halted. All soccer (football, if you’d like) contests in Italy, especially in their most-famous league the Serie-A, have all been suspended, and Juventus’ Daniele Rugani has tested positive for the disease. They are currently testing the rest of the players on the Italian club, for their host country of Italy has had the second-most deaths of any country in the world due to the virus.

And for American sports fans during this time this year, their coveted March Madness tournaments for men and women alike might be the next major competitions stopped for the foreseeable future as medical professionals scramble to find a solution to this humanity-altering phenomenon. Just as of Thursday afternoon, all Power-5 conferences will have their respective tournaments canceled in lieu of the national tournament taking place in a week or so. So, there are no official details on whether a country-wide favorite like the NCAA Men’s Div. I Tournament will even go on.

For the other leagues in this country: Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the NHL, has suspended all play until there is a “reasonable enough” time to get back to crowning a Stanley Cup Champion. Major League Soccer has suspended all play for 30 days, all Major League Baseball occurrences for the next month will have to wait as an official league memo was sent out Thursday afternoon, detailing that all Spring Training games have been canceled “beginning today”, and that Opening day for all 30 teams in the majors will be delayed for at least two weeks.

On top of all that, however, National Football League just so happens to be the only league that is willing to carefully tread the waters of this situation and not stop the processions of the league’s operations, whose official calendar year renews itself on March 18.

And as of this point, who knows if the NFL Draft will go on without fans? If WWE and wrestling supporters will be allowed to attend this year’s Wrestlemania, or if the Olympics in Tokyo, Japan will still happen this summer? Everything is up in the air, and it’s becoming real now, especially that our own separate world in the United States is feeling the burn from such a global atrocity.

Until then, we here at Sneaker Reporter will keep you posted on any breaking news headline pertaining to anything else happening throughout the league, and in general, sports for right now. So wash your hands, keep some hand sanitizer close to you at all times, be aware of your surroundings, and stay safe during this worrisome time.