A momentary first night for the NBA

BUENA VISTA LAKE, Fla. – After his post-match Zoom interview, before exiting triumphantly on the team bus, Rudy Gobert of Utah Jazz acknowledged that the historical show he was savoring was not exactly as expected.

“I shouldn’t have gotten a post-up,” said Gobert. “I should have taken a dunk.”

After using a Donovan Mitchell screen to break free, finally canceling a deflected pass and then turning back towards the baseline against a former teammate, Derrick Favors, Gobert dropped the ball over Favori in the first 20 seconds of Thursday evening . The brief nod that followed Gobert seemed to recognize the meaning of the score.

What Gobert eventually achieved was a layup that will be recorded as the first NBA basketball game in July that has ever counted. He scored the first two points and the last two points in Utah’s 106-104 victory over the Pelicans of New Orleans, the first game of the NBA restart at Walt Disney World – 141 days after Gobert’s successful 11th coronavirus test March led to the indefinite suspension of the season.

“Life works mysteriously,” said Gobert.

That initial sequence and his free throws, like a simple 62.1 percent shooter, helped him make Gobert a redeeming evening – shortly after a moving protest of social justice, in an arena without fans but teeming with unity and aim, made it an important occasion with many levels for the whole league.

For more than four minutes before Jazz and Pelicans rebelled, players from both teams, coaches and staff members, together with the referees, gathered side by side, extending from the baseline to the baseline. They gathered near the BLACK LIVES MATTER written on the floor near the marker table in each of the three game venues at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, then they knelt in unison while playing the national anthem recorded by Jon Baptiste.

The Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers, Staples Center co-tenants and championship rivals, came together to do the same thing before their game, during a recorded rendition of the anthem by the Compton Kidz Club in the Los Angeles area. . LeBron James had just helped the Lakers to win a 103-101 victory with wins played at both ends in the last 12.8 seconds when he told TNT in a post-game interview: “I hope our fans are proud of us “.

James wasn’t talking about basketball. Nor was it referring to the league’s official return, after such a long absence imposed by the coronavirus, or to the promising start of the NBA’s efforts to erect a so-called bubble on the Disney campus (at a cost of at least $ 180 million) with made-arena settings for television and daily coronavirus tests. Like most of the players involved in Thursday’s doubleheader, James was especially moved by the unity shown in their protest against the anthem.

“I hope I made Kaep proud,” said James, referring to former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who hasn’t played in the NFL since January 1, 2107, after putting him into practice in 2016 to kneel during the hymn to protest against racial injustice.

“I hope we will continue to make Kaep proud every single day,” said James.

JJ Redick of the pelicans said: “The crowd ‘stick to the sport’, keep politics out of sport, all those things, are now insignificant. You can’t. Politics and sport coexist now, and the league has recognized it.”

Indeed. Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner, attended both games on Thursday evening, wearing a blue hat and looking from behind the plexiglass high above the floor in both the HP Field House (Jazz-Pelicans) and the Arena (Lakers- Clippers) because it is not yet in quarantine and therefore cannot be around any of the estimated 1,500 inhabitants of the league bubble. Silver, however, made a statement stating that the league will not apply its long-standing rule, dating back to 1981, which requires all team staff to support the national anthem in a “dignified posture” along a sideline or a foul line.

“I respect the unified act of peaceful protest of our social justice teams and in these unique circumstances I will not enforce our longstanding rule requiring resistance during the execution of our national anthem,” said Silver.

There was a lot to accept for the commissioner. The games were played in two different gyms so that Turner could pass them on from one side to the other without waiting for a delay in sanitization. Jazz reversed a 16-point deficit in front of virtual pelicans fans of the “home” team, and James followed a clutch rebound basket with a decisive defense against Kawhi Leonard and Paul George on the same possession in the last few seconds to topple the Clippers run out of hand. Players wore Black Lives Matter shirts during pre-game warm-ups and many had social justice slogans on the backs of their uniforms instead of their names: “Peace” for the celebrated New Orleans rookie Zion Williamson, “I am A Man “for Utah, Mike Conley,” Say Her Name “for Utah, Donovan Mitchell.

Mitchell went even further in his protest against systemic racism, entering the building dressed in a bulletproof vest with the name of numerous victims of police brutality.

“The game was fantastic, we won by two, but at the end of the day, Breonna Taylor’s killers are still free,” said Mitchell. “There are so many different things we can honestly talk about. I will continue to talk about Breonna Taylor because she is close and dear to me. “

Mitchell obviously played collegially in Louisville. On March 13, two days after Gobert’s successful coronavirus test resulted in the arrest of the NBA, Taylor was shot dead when police officers broke into his apartment in Louisville, Ky.

In the much smaller picture of their association in Utah, Mitchell – who also tested positive for coronavirus in March – and Gobert went weeks without speaking. This was in part due to Gobert’s infamous video clip touching a table full of reporters’ recording devices before he knew he was infected, prompting many critics to say that he was not seriously treating the virus, but later it emerged that the tensions between two players have been bubbling for some time.

On this night, Mitchell scored eight consecutive points in Utah during the crunch, so he made the crucial guide and helped create the winning free throws in Gobert’s game. Gobert finished with 14 points, 12 rebounds, three blocked shots and an opportunity to reflect on the roller coaster of the past four months when the NBA was forced to remain inactive.

“I’m just grateful to be back on the floor,” said Gobert. “Honestly, many things have been said, many things have happened, many things are happening in the world right now. Being able to do what we love, being able to do it at the highest level, in safe conditions, being able to make a positive impact on communities and inspire millions of people and children around the world – is truly something it is bigger than a simple game. “