Upon their arrival, journalists in the bubble were placed in a mandatory quarantine. For a week, they were forbidden to leave their hotel rooms at Coronado Springs Resort, which is connected to the Torre del Gran Destino, where the top eight teams stay. Meals were left outside journalists’ doors and once a day they were greeted by representatives of the BioReference Laboratories to receive a nasal and throat test. The league said that individuals should get results within 24 hours, although Andrews claimed that he once received his only about eight hours after a test. Such a turnaround, at a time when many in the country are still waiting a week or more for test results, has more scrupulously invited the ethics of the NBA bubble and the returns of other leagues, with some critics wondering if it is appropriate to play all games with the pandemic still rising.
“I can’t fault that argument,” said Andrews. “I have no problem with people who say that sport shouldn’t be back in 2020, because there are many good arguments to make.” Andrews said the NBA had deployed “one of the most complete plans for the return of sport,” but acknowledged that the plan requires “an abundance of tests.” If the country faces another test shortage, as has been the case for much of spring, Andrews believes the NBA “will have to morally reevaluate.”
During the quarantine, journalists filed stories and made television appearances from their breakfast nooks. Vardon, speaking to me while he was locked up in his hotel room, described his improvised training regimen. “There are 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, 100 dives and 100 burpees every day,” he said. “And here’s the real kicker: I run from the door to the mirror in my bathroom.” After Rooks revealed on Twitter that he was playing Connect Four on his iPhone, a new bubble pastime was born. “A couple of minutes later my phone vibrates, and so it is Ja Morant by sending me an invitation to Connect Four, “he said, referring to the young star of Memphis Grizzlies, who is the first in the Rookie of the Year. Rooks noted that he has won all Connect Four matchups, although Morant was more successful with the digital billiards. “This is our ritual now,” he said.
Sunday afternoon the NBA confirmed that all reporters had completed the mandatory week in solitary confinement and were allowed to leave their rooms (Andrews and Haynes had already been released, having arrived earlier than others). Sun-hungry reporters avidly exchanged the hotel’s air-conditioning conveniences for the Florida summer heat. Finally outdoors, they got to know the premises and restrictions. Journalists have access to a swimming pool and some garden games, as well as a track around a lake, although they are not allowed to complete a full cycle, which would bring them too close to a hotel where the players are staying. Excluding the three places where the games will be played and the seven practice facilities, journalists have less than a square mile of space to move around on campus. “There’s not much we can do, but being outside was nice,” Ganguli, the Lakers beat the writer for Los Angeles Times, Tell me.
Later that night Ganguli went around with some of the other reporters there, a sort of meeting for the scribes who are used to crossing the paths on the sidelines and in the changing rooms. Just like their counterparts covering the 2020 presidential campaign, NBA reporters spent most of the year at home after the league suspended play in mid-March due to the pandemic. Ganguli and his fellow journalists enjoyed wine outdoors on Sunday, albeit at a safe distance. All the reporters inside the bubble wear a monitor that beeps when people are six feet apart. During a press conference on Monday, Ganguli said that the convergence of so many people in one space triggered a noise of digital noise.
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