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The NBA is suspending the season due to the coronavirus. Famous people are sick, and Disney is closing. This is my reaction to the craziness.

Chip Murphy

A night without a single sporting event is bizarre enough, so I wasn’t sure how to write about all this. I wasn’t even sure if writing about it was appropriate. But these are my thoughts, and I had to get them out.

I feel bad for Rudy Gobert. He seemed contrite in his Instagram apology, but he’ll always be that guy. You know, the one who gave the NBA coronavirus and shut it all down.

That’s probably a little harsh, but in my defense, it’s been a crazy couple of days.

Everybody figured something was up at the Oklahoma City-Utah game on Wednesday night after the mysterious non-start and subsequent abrupt dismissal of the fans by the PA announcer.

Then Shams dropped the bomb: Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for coronavirus. What?!?!

This wasn’t just any basketball player but like a real one.

Wait now, Tom Hanks too! And his wife!

Could The Rock be next?

Minutes later: The NBA has suspended its season. Huh?!?!

Like a selfish jerk, I thought about myself.

The only thing I know how to talk about is basketball. Without it, I could turn into the dude from Office Space who burns down the building at the end. Should I start writing about TV? People like TV.

What the hell is wrong with you? People are sick and dying. 

I bounced back to a normal human being as fast as I could.

Realizing it was probably best to trash the Terrence Ross feature I was working on; I checked out what Trump was saying.

The president (who’s apparently immune to this virus) read a speech off a teleprompter that was littered with errors—one of which impacted my family.

My sister is studying abroad in Greece, and per Trump’s speech, she was banned from returning home as we planned. This wasn’t ideal.

Fortunately, the White House cleared up the president’s gaffes. My sister is an American citizen, so the ban doesn’t apply to her.

My parents were and still are understandably shaken up. We actually have to work on getting my sister home from her semester abroad. Crazy.

Alright, that’s it for the politics. That was way too much.


Wednesday was crazy, but Thursday was unlike anything we as sports fans had ever seen. College basketball was gone in the blink of an eye.

First, they came for the conference tournaments, and then they came for March Madness.

Not March Madness! Anything but March Madness!

Major League Baseball canceled spring training and pushed back the start of the regular season. The NHL and MLS followed the NBA’s lead and shut their seasons down while the NCAA suspended all competitions indefinitely.

The WWE announced that they remain committed to holding Wrestlemania 36 in Tampa Bay on April 5. Vince McMahon survived a limo explosion. He’s not afraid of a virus.

In non-sports news:

We won’t see Dom Toretto in theaters again until April of next year.

Disney shut down everything. Their land, world, and their cruises too. Also, Broadway went dark—if that’s your kind of thing.


Commissioner Adam Silver went on TNT and said the league would be on hiatus for at least 30 days.

I guess I can do some reading. That’s supposed to be good for you. I’ve been sitting on a short story since I took a short story course in college. I could dust that off.

I really should finish “Stranger Things” at some point. Pretending like I know what that show is about is getting to be a pain in the ass.

I could use this time to try and find a new job. Although something tells me nobody is hiring during a global health emergency.

I’m going to miss the NBA like crazy, but some things are bigger than sports. What’s happening right now is one of those things.