Remembering the NBA shutdown, one year later | Keith Pompey

CHICAGO — It was one year ago today that my job as the 76ers beat writer for The Inquirer didn’t matter. Actually, nothing outside of my health and my family’s well-being mattered.

Some of the events that unfolded on March 11, 2020, remain a blur to me.

I covered the Sixers-Pistons game at the Wells Fargo Center. The thought of basketball under the circumstances all but went away during the game when the Utah Jazz-Oklahoma City Thunder contest was canceled before tip-off. Utah center Rudy Gobert had tested positive for COVID-19.

Gobert’s positive test led the league to suspend the 2019-20 regular season shortly after the conclusion of Sixers-Pistons game.

What followed was a blur. I didn’t have time to think. My focus was on making deadline.

After leaving the building, I sat in my car in the vacant arena parking lot in shock, trying to get a better understanding of our new reality. That was the last time I walked inside an NBA locker room. It was my was last in-person interview with a coach or player. (The league has repeatedly promised that media access will return to normal once the pandemic ends. But in the meantime, official interviews are conducted over Zoom calls and phone interviews.)

The 2019-20 season resumed in July, when 22 of the league’s 30 teams participated in the NBA restart in a bubble-like atmosphere at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World in Kissimmee, Fla. The season concluded in October, with the Los Angeles Lakers defeating the Miami Heat in six games in the NBA Finals.

» READ MORE: How the Sixers match up against the Eastern Conference’s best in the season’s second half

The 2020-21 season began in December, in empty areas, with players subject to restrictions and health and safety protocols. The Sixers (24-12) open the second half of the season tonight against the Chicago Bulls at the United Center.

All-Stars Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons are sidelined after coming in contact with a barber who tested positive for COVID-19. Embiid can return for Friday’s road game against the Washington Wizards if he continues to test negative. Simmons will be cleared to rejoin the team on Saturday if he continues to test negative.

This comes after Embiid and Simmons were held out of Sunday’s NBA All-Star Game in Atlanta and serves as a an example of the NBA we’ve come to know over the past year.

It all goes back to March 11, 2020, when Thunder trainer Donnie Strack raced up to the referees just moments before tip-off of the Jazz-OKC game to inform them Gobert had just tested positive for the coronavirus.

Soon after, the game was canceled. The NBA games that were being played went on as scheduled. However, the New Orleans Pelicans-Sacramento Kings game was canceled because one of the referees had worked a Jazz game a couple of nights before.

At the time, Sixers coach Doc Rivers was coaching the Los Angeles Clippers. Like most, he was uncertain if the season would resume.

On Sunday, Rivers recalled the Clippers’ trip to San Francisco to face the Golden State Warriors on March 10, 2020. They prevailed, 131-107. But that’s not what sticks with Rivers.

“I remember when we landed in San Francisco and went to the hotel with the police escort, and no one was on the streets in San Francisco, I remember thinking, ‘This is not good,’ and getting to the game and no one was there,” he said. “I think they had like 30% of their crowd at their game. You knew something was going to happen. You know selfishly, I would say as a team is probably the best we were playing. So I didn’t want a shut down at that moment.

“But once the shutdown started, I didn’t know we would have a season. I wasn’t very optimistic. And you know I’m glad we were able to pull it off.”

» READ MORE: Looking back at the Sixers’ best wins and worst losses of the first half | Off the Dribble

The Sixers played in San Francisco three days before the Clippers, losing to the Warriors, 118-114. There was an eerie feeling in that Bay Area due to the pandemic.

I didn’t get alarmed about the coronavirus until my flight from San Francisco to Philadelphia was delayed for about 90 minutes on March 8, 2020. Initially, the American Airlines employees at the gate said they didn’t know why the plane was delayed. Then they said it was a cleaning issue. After about 45 minutes, we were told that a passenger on an earlier flight on the same plane had become extremely ill. Alarmed, the flight attendants refused to allow people to board the plane until every inch of the aircraft was thoroughly cleaned.

To know me is to know that I routinely get sick in late March. Something about the combination of a long season, lack of sleep, constantly being in different climates, and an endless number of flights does that to me.

Yet, I started to pay more attention to my sore throat and cough at the time. Fearful for my family and concerned about my condition, I spent the next three nights in isolation away from home after arriving at Philadelphia International Airport.

After spending most of those days sleeping, I covered the Sixers game against the Pistons. The uncertainty and fear that came with the NBA shutdown led to my self-quarantining again, this time for 14 days. My stress eventually evaporated after receiving a negative COVID-19 test result.

March 11, 2020, along with the days preceding and following it, are ones I’ll never forget.