On Monday, around 4:30 p.m., local time, Rudy Gobert left the 21c Museum Hotel, at the west end of downtown Oklahoma City, and boarded a bus to make the seven-square-foot trip to at Chesapeake Energy Arena.
Nine and a half months ago, Gobert left the same hotel and got into a car that would take him about 20 blocks from the University of Oklahoma Medical Center to test him for COVID-19. It seemed absurd that Gobert could have the coronavirus, but after returning negative tests to detect streptococcus and flu, he got a swab in his nose. Less than 24 hours later (just about 10 minutes before the Oklahoma City Thunder and Utah Jazz were scheduled to leave on March 11) it tested positive for the virus, initiating a series of events that forever changed the NBA … and the sports world in general.
On Monday, Gobert made the long walk down the hall to the locker room he had never seen in March, the one in which his companions spent confined hours, with unknowns and fears surrounding them as they sat in a circle with blue surgical gloves and masks on. , waiting for health officials to arrive to test them.
“I walked into my office and remembered how I spent some time there,” jazz coach Quin Snyder said Monday with a smile. “I won’t call it post-traumatic stress disorder, because it’s not that extreme, but there are certainly memories.”
Monday’s game was a full moment for Gobert and the Jazz, with the flood of inevitable memories, even though they didn’t want to make it a focus of the night. They didn’t spend too much time talking about it, Snyder said, but small things, such as being in the same hotel or seeing the locker room or walking to a fanless track, served as a reminder.
“I had the same [hotel] room, believe it or not, “said Donovan Mitchell.” Which is ironic. “
The Jazz won the game 110-109, with Mitchell hitting a bench runner with seven seconds left to provide the final margin. The Thunder had a chance to win the bell, with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander driving to his right, but was met with the imposing presence of Gobert and his arms of albatross disputing the shot. Gilgeous-Alexander’s disposition was short, Gobert caught the rebound and the buzzer sounded with the ball in his hands.
“It’s just basketball. I just focused on trying to win,” Gobert said. “The only [big] the thing was coming back to the same hotel, all memories. It was a little weird. “
Gobert’s life changed in March when he tested positive a few days after touching reporters ’recorders on a table in front of him, shedding light on new protocols established by the league to separate players and the media to protect themselves. against the spread of the virus. . He became the zero patient in the NBA, with his carelessness as an example. He accepted responsibility and apologized, then spent two weeks fighting the virus and treating severe symptoms, which included months without being able to taste or smell.
“Rudy was vilified and in retrospect we know the virus better,” Snyder said. “I think Rudy fully acknowledges that there have been some mistakes made, and that everyone has made those mistakes over and over again.
“At the time, it was such a significant thing; and in Rudy’s case, he’s had a chance to process it. We always challenge ourselves when we have adversity, to make you better, and I think Rudy has come out. of that in a place where there is growth. Not just Rudy, but for all of us. “
Much has changed since March: people, places, things.
“It’s the same year. It’s still the same year of all this,” Mitchell said. “It seems like it was always ago, but I don’t think we thought about it too much. We had a moment when we got here and it was like, ‘Okay, let’s go back.’
The March game was also a turning point for the Gobert-Mitchell relationship, with tensions heightened by the virus transmission after Mitchell tested positive the next day. All the chemistry of the Jazz costume was in question, and many openly wondered if anything should be given. Would Jazz change any of its stars? Could they fix it?
Mitchell admitted it took him “a while to cool off” and the two spent a long period of time without speaking. When the NBA resumed the Florida bubble, Gobert and Mitchell were forced to tackle the problem and repair the fracture. They were aligned again with a common goal as a unifier: to win.
Monday’s game was appropriate for many reasons, but for getting Mitchell to get the starting shot and Gobert producing the winning stoppage showed the formula they have relied on their hopes. Snyder referred to the growth the team experienced that March night, but it is deeper than winning a basketball game nearly ten months later.
“I think we all appreciate more what we consider to be a normal life,” the coach said. “You can’t help but remember that night; it was significant for both teams, really for the league. But also, the contrast between that point and where we are now, the season, the break, the bubble, coming back and playing again , it seems like it’s been a lifetime since it happened. “