NBA commissioner Adam Silver -- like most everyone -- won't ever forget March 11, 2020. Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesMar 11, 2021
The decision that would change the NBA -- and sports as we knew them -- was made in 20-30 minutes.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver was in a car outside his apartment in uptown Manhattan. Michele Roberts, the executive director of the NBPA, was in a car outside her apartment in Harlem. And they were both talking -- in a dizzying flurry of phone calls -- to a group huddled together in a conference room on the event level of Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City.
Around 6:50 p.m, on March 11, 2020, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt received a call from the state's commissioner of health, informing him that Rudy Gobert, a member of the Utah Jazz -- who were in town for a game that night -- had tested positive for COVID-19.
Stitt looked at his cellphone for a moment before answering. Like Silver and Roberts, he'd been having meetings with public health officials about how best to prepare for the pandemic that had devastated parts of China and northern Italy in January and February.
"But on March 11," Stitt recalled, "I was still unsure. Is this really going to hit Oklahoma?"
Within seconds of that phone call, everything changed.
The governor stepped out of the business meeting he'd been attending at a restaurant inside the arena; summoned Thunder owner Clay Bennett, president of basketball operations Sam Presti and general manager Rob Hennigan to a nearby conference room; and called Silver.
"Bennett was saying, 'Hey, what's the NBA's policy on this?'" Stitt said. "And they said, 'What's the state's position?'"
Bennett looked at Stitt and answered, "Well, I've got the governor right here in front of me."
The pregame music from the arena was loud, but the conference room was quiet as the governor and Thunder brass huddled to figure out what to do, and then how to tell the 18,000 people in the arena without causing a panic.
"It was so new in the pandemic," Stitt said. "We didn't really know if it could be transmitted through the air. If people in the stadium would be affected."
Over the course of the next few minutes, the phone calls between Silver, Roberts and the group in that conference room in Oklahoma City were fast and furious. The game between the Jazz and Thunder was supposed to tip off any minute.
"There was this heightened sense of, 'OK, we really have to make a quick decision,'" Hennigan said. "'But we have to make the right decision.'"
The men in Oklahoma decided the game had to be postponed. But it was just a few minutes before tipoff, so Hennigan and trainer Donnie Strack had to sprint onto the court to halt the game.
"They brought myself and [Jazz coach] Quin Snyder to half court with the officials," said former Thunder coach Billy Donovan. "And Quin said, listen, 'Rudy Gobert has got a test that's out there right now that we're not sure is positive or negative.'"
Everything started crystalizing at warp speed: Who knew how many Jazz players and staffers had been exposed to Gobert? How many teams had the Jazz played in the past few weeks? How many teams had those teams played?
It didn't take long to realize how exponential the risk of exposure was across the league.
Everything had to stop. Instantly and indefinitely.
But never did Silver, or anyone else on those frenzied calls that night, imagine how much things would fundamentally change.
"I think that I thought when we shut down, we would be taking a 30-day hiatus and then we would come up with a new set of procedures, standards and protocols that would allow us to reopen, in arenas with fans," Silver said.
"That's how little I knew back on March 11."
Fans leave the Jazz-Thunder game on March 11, 2020, after the postponement announcement. Alonzo Adams/USA Today Sports
COMPARATIVELY SPEAKING, THE NBA knew more than most that night. The league had been issuing guidelines to teams to prepare for COVID-19 since the end of January.
There were recommendations on enhanced cleaning protocols and health and safety recommendations -- such as washing hands and reporting symptoms of illness. There were even instructions on how to contact public health officials if a player or staffer presented with symptoms.
But it was all still mostly theoretical.
"As far as I know, not a single public health official had recommended that we shut down the league," Silver recalled. "Some had suggested that we reduce the number of fans in our buildings, and that's what we were considering around March 11, but we certainly did not anticipate that we would be shutting down our business as we did.
"And certainly I would not have imagined that a full year later we would still be operating without any fans at all in half of our arenas."
In fact, earlier that day Silver had spoken separately with union leader Roberts and OKC owner Bennett -- on a board of governors call -- about the possibility of playing without fans at some point and the eventuality of a player, coach or staffer testing positive for the virus.
"At that point, I think I stupidly believed it was older people that were likely to get it first," Roberts said. "And that our guys, because of their age and because of their health, were less likely to get it."
She'd been tracking the situation in China and, especially, northern Italy, because one of her colleagues had parents who lived in Milan. But Roberts still took a crowded subway to work that morning and ordered an Uber for the drive home that night.
"So guys were being told about it," she said. "They were generally aware that they needed to be careful. But I did not think, 'Thank God we had this meeting today because it could be as soon as tonight when we have to stop playing.'"
"I probably thought we had a couple of weeks before we had to stop even playing in arenas."
Even Silver -- who'd been aware of the threat posed by COVID-19 since the middle of January because the NBA has 200 employees in China who'd been affected by the first outbreaks and lockdowns -- wasn't able to fathom how quickly and massively the threat would grow.
"My history had been through our business in Asia, particularly in China with H1N1 and with SARS," Silver said. "And those always seemed like viruses that were affecting other people but not us."
In the year since he made the decision to shut down the NBA, Silver said he has often reflected on why the scale of the pandemic was so hard to grasp at the time.
"There's a famous book by Ernest Becker," Silver said. "It's called 'The Denial of Death.' We all have a way of acting like that's not ever happening to me.
"It's what enables us to keep going, right?"
The remainder of the 2020 season was played inside a bubble in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, from July 30 to Oct. 11 -- when the Lakers won the title. The new season began on Dec. 22. Photo by Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images
THAT ILLUSION WAS shattered on March 11, 2020. The NBA's decision to shut down started a domino effect across sports and society, bringing the danger presented by the pandemic into stark focus for millions around the country and the world.
"Stopping those games got everybody's attention," Roberts said. "Our game is very popular, and it was at a point in our season where we pretty much owned the sports waves.
"People still say to me, 'You know, I didn't take it seriously until I heard about the NBA stopping the games. If they're not playing, this thing must be really a problem.'"
Still, it's hard for Roberts to look back on that day.
"I have an incredible amount of frustration about the lack of testing and preparedness [then]," Roberts said. "If I'm seeing it coming because a staff member's parents get sick in Milan, and I begin to think about how this is going to impact my players, then it seems to me a lot of somebodies on Capitol Hill and in the White House should have been right on it."
In her meeting with Silver earlier in the day on March 11, Roberts remembers expressing frustration that there wasn't adequate testing available for everyone in the country who needed it, let alone for the players she represented who travel frequently, interact with thousands of people and had high risk of exposure.
Several labs had offered test kits to the league for purchase, but ultimately they had all agreed that it would be unethical to buy them in larger quantities or take them away from symptomatic people with known exposures when the nation's supply was so limited.
It took months for testing capacity to improve. Months that the NBA spent on hiatus, not sure whether it would be able to resume its season safely.
But Silver stayed in close touch with the players, owners, executives and business partners so each decision the league made in the ever-changing environment would be inclusive.
"I would say that one of the things I've learned over the last year is that this virus is 100% in charge," Silver said. "It's foolhardy to make multimonth predictions because events and circumstances will invariably change."
For example, Silver said, when testing capacity finally improved and the NBA started formalizing plans in April to restart in a bubble environment in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, the area had one of the lowest case rates in the country. But by the time the league arrived at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex, the area had one of the highest case rates in the county.
"It's gratifying to see some well-earned optimism, based on the work of so many in the public health field and scientists and doctors. But we all have to continue to proceed, especially in the near future, with caution."Adam Silver
Conversely, Silver noted, experts he consulted with continually stressed it would be years before an effective vaccine was developed. And even when or if it was, the vaccine would likely be more like the seasonal flu vaccine in terms of efficacy -- instead, three highly effective COVID-19 vaccines have been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration within the first year.
"It's gratifying to see some well-earned optimism, based on the work of so many in the public health field and scientists and doctors," Silver said. "But we all have to continue to proceed, especially in the near future, with caution.
"I'll add, though, that I was not as optimistic, even a few months ago, that there would be the opportunity -- beginning next fall for the following season -- for something to look a lot more like normal then than any of us were predicting."
A year out from March 11, 2020, and fans are allowed back into arenas in small, spaced-out numbers. Elsa/Pool Photo via AP
SILVER HAS SEEN too much in the past year to go further than that. There is optimism now that three vaccines have been approved, cases are falling and the league has successfully completed one season amid the continuing danger of the virus and started another.
It has taken a tremendous toll, however. March 11, 2020, feels much longer than a year ago.
"The ability to operate in a pandemic has required an enormous amount of shared sacrifice," Silver said. "And the shared sacrifice requires people always putting what they're doing in context, not just with all the different groups within the NBA but within the country as a whole."
Everyone has lost money. Players and coaches have had to sacrifice time away from their families and personal freedoms. Fans have had to watch from afar.
Everyone has complained about something -- whether it be the decision to start this season just 71 days after the conclusion of the Finals to save millions in broadcast revenue or the constantly rescheduled games.
There have been hundreds of positive cases among players and staffers. Family members and friends have died.
The virus has humbled everyone.
"If we haven't learned this lesson by now," Roberts said. "Then God help us."
She will never forget the night of March 11, 2020. No one in the NBA will. Every minute of that day was long. And sleep did not come easily.
"I remember keeping the phone near my pillow so that I could answer it," Roberts said. "Because I knew that guys were going to keep calling. Everyone was afraid.
"I'd drift off, then another call would come in, 'Ms. Roberts, are you asleep?'"
ESPN's Julia Lowrie Henderson contributed to this story.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver -- like most everyone -- won't ever forget March 11, 2020. Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesMar 11, 2021
The decision that would change the NBA -- and sports as we knew them -- was made in 20-30 minutes.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver was in a car outside his apartment in uptown Manhattan. Michele Roberts, the executive director of the NBPA, was in a car outside her apartment in Harlem. And they were both talking -- in a dizzying flurry of phone calls -- to a group huddled together in a conference room on the event level of Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City.
Around 6:50 p.m, on March 11, 2020, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt received a call from the state's commissioner of health, informing him that Rudy Gobert, a member of the Utah Jazz -- who were in town for a game that night -- had tested positive for COVID-19.
Stitt looked at his cellphone for a moment before answering. Like Silver and Roberts, he'd been having meetings with public health officials about how best to prepare for the pandemic that had devastated parts of China and northern Italy in January and February.
"But on March 11," Stitt recalled, "I was still unsure. Is this really going to hit Oklahoma?"
Within seconds of that phone call, everything changed.
The governor stepped out of the business meeting he'd been attending at a restaurant inside the arena; summoned Thunder owner Clay Bennett, president of basketball operations Sam Presti and general manager Rob Hennigan to a nearby conference room; and called Silver.
"Bennett was saying, 'Hey, what's the NBA's policy on this?'" Stitt said. "And they said, 'What's the state's position?'"
Bennett looked at Stitt and answered, "Well, I've got the governor right here in front of me."
The pregame music from the arena was loud, but the conference room was quiet as the governor and Thunder brass huddled to figure out what to do, and then how to tell the 18,000 people in the arena without causing a panic.
"It was so new in the pandemic," Stitt said. "We didn't really know if it could be transmitted through the air. If people in the stadium would be affected."
Over the course of the next few minutes, the phone calls between Silver, Roberts and the group in that conference room in Oklahoma City were fast and furious. The game between the Jazz and Thunder was supposed to tip off any minute.
"There was this heightened sense of, 'OK, we really have to make a quick decision,'" Hennigan said. "'But we have to make the right decision.'"
The men in Oklahoma decided the game had to be postponed. But it was just a few minutes before tipoff, so Hennigan and trainer Donnie Strack had to sprint onto the court to halt the game.
"They brought myself and [Jazz coach] Quin Snyder to half court with the officials," said former Thunder coach Billy Donovan. "And Quin said, listen, 'Rudy Gobert has got a test that's out there right now that we're not sure is positive or negative.'"
Everything started crystalizing at warp speed: Who knew how many Jazz players and staffers had been exposed to Gobert? How many teams had the Jazz played in the past few weeks? How many teams had those teams played?
It didn't take long to realize how exponential the risk of exposure was across the league.
Everything had to stop. Instantly and indefinitely.
But never did Silver, or anyone else on those frenzied calls that night, imagine how much things would fundamentally change.
"I think that I thought when we shut down, we would be taking a 30-day hiatus and then we would come up with a new set of procedures, standards and protocols that would allow us to reopen, in arenas with fans," Silver said.
"That's how little I knew back on March 11."
Fans leave the Jazz-Thunder game on March 11, 2020, after the postponement announcement. Alonzo Adams/USA Today Sports
COMPARATIVELY SPEAKING, THE NBA knew more than most that night. The league had been issuing guidelines to teams to prepare for COVID-19 since the end of January.
There were recommendations on enhanced cleaning protocols and health and safety recommendations -- such as washing hands and reporting symptoms of illness. There were even instructions on how to contact public health officials if a player or staffer presented with symptoms.
But it was all still mostly theoretical.
"As far as I know, not a single public health official had recommended that we shut down the league," Silver recalled. "Some had suggested that we reduce the number of fans in our buildings, and that's what we were considering around March 11, but we certainly did not anticipate that we would be shutting down our business as we did.
"And certainly I would not have imagined that a full year later we would still be operating without any fans at all in half of our arenas."
In fact, earlier that day Silver had spoken separately with union leader Roberts and OKC owner Bennett -- on a board of governors call -- about the possibility of playing without fans at some point and the eventuality of a player, coach or staffer testing positive for the virus.
"At that point, I think I stupidly believed it was older people that were likely to get it first," Roberts said. "And that our guys, because of their age and because of their health, were less likely to get it."
She'd been tracking the situation in China and, especially, northern Italy, because one of her colleagues had parents who lived in Milan. But Roberts still took a crowded subway to work that morning and ordered an Uber for the drive home that night.
"So guys were being told about it," she said. "They were generally aware that they needed to be careful. But I did not think, 'Thank God we had this meeting today because it could be as soon as tonight when we have to stop playing.'"
"I probably thought we had a couple of weeks before we had to stop even playing in arenas."
Even Silver -- who'd been aware of the threat posed by COVID-19 since the middle of January because the NBA has 200 employees in China who'd been affected by the first outbreaks and lockdowns -- wasn't able to fathom how quickly and massively the threat would grow.
"My history had been through our business in Asia, particularly in China with H1N1 and with SARS," Silver said. "And those always seemed like viruses that were affecting other people but not us."
In the year since he made the decision to shut down the NBA, Silver said he has often reflected on why the scale of the pandemic was so hard to grasp at the time.
"There's a famous book by Ernest Becker," Silver said. "It's called 'The Denial of Death.' We all have a way of acting like that's not ever happening to me.
"It's what enables us to keep going, right?"
The remainder of the 2020 season was played inside a bubble in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, from July 30 to Oct. 11 -- when the Lakers won the title. The new season began on Dec. 22. Photo by Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images
THAT ILLUSION WAS shattered on March 11, 2020. The NBA's decision to shut down started a domino effect across sports and society, bringing the danger presented by the pandemic into stark focus for millions around the country and the world.
"Stopping those games got everybody's attention," Roberts said. "Our game is very popular, and it was at a point in our season where we pretty much owned the sports waves.
"People still say to me, 'You know, I didn't take it seriously until I heard about the NBA stopping the games. If they're not playing, this thing must be really a problem.'"
Still, it's hard for Roberts to look back on that day.
"I have an incredible amount of frustration about the lack of testing and preparedness [then]," Roberts said. "If I'm seeing it coming because a staff member's parents get sick in Milan, and I begin to think about how this is going to impact my players, then it seems to me a lot of somebodies on Capitol Hill and in the White House should have been right on it."
In her meeting with Silver earlier in the day on March 11, Roberts remembers expressing frustration that there wasn't adequate testing available for everyone in the country who needed it, let alone for the players she represented who travel frequently, interact with thousands of people and had high risk of exposure.
Several labs had offered test kits to the league for purchase, but ultimately they had all agreed that it would be unethical to buy them in larger quantities or take them away from symptomatic people with known exposures when the nation's supply was so limited.
It took months for testing capacity to improve. Months that the NBA spent on hiatus, not sure whether it would be able to resume its season safely.
But Silver stayed in close touch with the players, owners, executives and business partners so each decision the league made in the ever-changing environment would be inclusive.
"I would say that one of the things I've learned over the last year is that this virus is 100% in charge," Silver said. "It's foolhardy to make multimonth predictions because events and circumstances will invariably change."
For example, Silver said, when testing capacity finally improved and the NBA started formalizing plans in April to restart in a bubble environment in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, the area had one of the lowest case rates in the country. But by the time the league arrived at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex, the area had one of the highest case rates in the county.
"It's gratifying to see some well-earned optimism, based on the work of so many in the public health field and scientists and doctors. But we all have to continue to proceed, especially in the near future, with caution."Adam Silver
Conversely, Silver noted, experts he consulted with continually stressed it would be years before an effective vaccine was developed. And even when or if it was, the vaccine would likely be more like the seasonal flu vaccine in terms of efficacy -- instead, three highly effective COVID-19 vaccines have been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration within the first year.
"It's gratifying to see some well-earned optimism, based on the work of so many in the public health field and scientists and doctors," Silver said. "But we all have to continue to proceed, especially in the near future, with caution.
"I'll add, though, that I was not as optimistic, even a few months ago, that there would be the opportunity -- beginning next fall for the following season -- for something to look a lot more like normal then than any of us were predicting."
A year out from March 11, 2020, and fans are allowed back into arenas in small, spaced-out numbers. Elsa/Pool Photo via AP
SILVER HAS SEEN too much in the past year to go further than that. There is optimism now that three vaccines have been approved, cases are falling and the league has successfully completed one season amid the continuing danger of the virus and started another.
It has taken a tremendous toll, however. March 11, 2020, feels much longer than a year ago.
"The ability to operate in a pandemic has required an enormous amount of shared sacrifice," Silver said. "And the shared sacrifice requires people always putting what they're doing in context, not just with all the different groups within the NBA but within the country as a whole."
Everyone has lost money. Players and coaches have had to sacrifice time away from their families and personal freedoms. Fans have had to watch from afar.
Everyone has complained about something -- whether it be the decision to start this season just 71 days after the conclusion of the Finals to save millions in broadcast revenue or the constantly rescheduled games.
There have been hundreds of positive cases among players and staffers. Family members and friends have died.
The virus has humbled everyone.
"If we haven't learned this lesson by now," Roberts said. "Then God help us."
She will never forget the night of March 11, 2020. No one in the NBA will. Every minute of that day was long. And sleep did not come easily.
"I remember keeping the phone near my pillow so that I could answer it," Roberts said. "Because I knew that guys were going to keep calling. Everyone was afraid.
"I'd drift off, then another call would come in, 'Ms. Roberts, are you asleep?'"
ESPN's Julia Lowrie Henderson contributed to this story.
