A team bus carrying the NBA champions Toronto Raptors basketball team, with Black Lives Matter displayed on the sides, arrives at the Walt Disney World complex outside Orlando, Fla., on July 9, 2020.
TORONTO RAPTORS/Reuters
Generally speaking, there is an orderly way storylines develop during a sports training camp:
First, talk about the new guys.
Second, talk about the old guys.
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Third, how are all these guys feeling?
Fourth, what’s up with that guy?
Fifth, the new guy is hurt already.
Sixth, these guys are(n’t) ready to go (as the case may be).
Then the season gets under way. This tedious tradition exists because, seriously, what else can you talk about when they aren’t playing actual games?
This is one of the things the pandemic bubble has turned on its head. All of a sudden, training camp is interesting. Everybody wants to know what it’s like to enter the Athletic Biosphere. What’s the food like? Who’s in there? What do you do all day?
“I’ve just been really chillin’. Taking this time to rest my body,” Raptors swingman Patrick McCaw said on Wednesday. “You got a lot of free time outside of practice. There’s little things you can do. You can fish.”
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These interviews are being beamed in by what appears to be Soviet-era technology, so it can sometimes be hard to understand what’s being said. So did McCaw say “fish”? As in, with a pole?
Yes, fish.
Turns out there’s a whole online sub-genre dedicated to watching NBA players fish off a dock in Disney World.
Houston Rockets guard Patrick Beverley is taking fishing lessons with L.A. Clippers’ forward Montrezl Harrell. In a hotel hallway. Beverley posted a video of said introduction to rod technology.
“See this part right here?” Harrell says. “When you flip this over, instantly the line’s going to drop.”
Beverley does not look convinced.
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If fishing isn’t your thing, how about lurid assignations? Everyone likes those. Harrell got pulled into an online storm involving an Instagram model and her apparent invitation (quickly rescinded) into the NBA bubble by an, ahem, unidentified friend.
Someone wildly speculated that Harrell was the friend, prompting a sleepy social-media denial from Harrell: “Why the hell I wake up from a nap and everyone accusing Trezz of something.”
You’ll notice that that’s not exactly a denial.
Oh, those scamps in the NBA, with their fishing and their friends.
And did you hear the one where Phoenix’s Kelly Oubre sent out a heads-up letting his colleagues know that you could order takeout into the bubble? Because you most definitely can’t do that. Takeout turns a nice, smooth bubble into an epidemiological wiffle ball.
Oubre’s bad advice prompted a Sacramento King to do the very thing, which in turn got him yanked back into full lockdown for two weeks, which in turn prompted his mother to gently berate him on Twitter: “You only cross the line for your Momma’s cooking! And I was not in Florida, sir!!”
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There are dozens of more soap-opera sub-plots coming out of basketball lockdown, all them offered up freely by the stars of the show.
So far, the NBA bubble isn’t just working. It’s created a new content stream for the league. This is the hottest new reality show on television, only it’s not on television and it produces itself.
At this rate, it’s possible the NBA bubble will turn out to be more fun to watch than the NBA season.
This is where the NBA separates itself from its peers. Basketball players seem to instinctively understand that their role as entertainers doesn’t end once they step outside the lines of play.
This is why the NBA is a global marketing jackpot, while the NHL spends a lot of time wondering why no one in China loves it.
That willingness to embrace celebrity was always important to the NBA’s success, but has never been moreso.
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Most of us continue to operate under the assumption that this new way of living is a blip. It may be a six-month blip or a year-long blip, but a blip nonetheless.
What if it’s not a blip? What if this is just the way we live from now on?
The sports business is the least of our worries, but the game has a function. Its greatest social utility is reminding pandemic agnostics that things are not getting back to normal. If pros used to getting anything they want can’t get takeout, you may also find some interruption to your normal life service. Regular programming may or may not resume shortly.
Sports started this for a lot of us and it will end it. When fans are in arenas again, this will be over.
As the NBA’s bubble experiment was launched, Raptors president Masai Ujiri said he expected it to be a weird one-off.
“Next season will be played with fans,” Ujiri said. “We’ll get through this by the grace of God. I’m one of the optimistic ones.”
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I’m not. There is nothing to suggest this will be over by Dec. 1 (the proposed start date of the 2020-21 NBA campaign). Or June 1. Or the next Dec. 1.
We can wish that happens, but no one with an authoritative viewpoint has given anything but vague, transparently morale-boosting deadlines designed to calm the masses.
If so, bubble life is the NBA (and NHL) for the foreseeable future.
For now, that seems like fun, in an overnight-camp sort of way. NBA players are making what must be a drag – living forever in a chain hotel – look like grown-up Hogwarts. I suppose the insane amounts of money they make must help in this regard.
But we should not underestimate how soothing that example may prove to be if we’re headed back into lockdown. If they can manage it, so can the rest of us. At least, that’s the theory.
Meanwhile, the NBA finds itself gifted a low-cost, high-visibility marketing campaign. It is the make-your-own-fun league, the fishing-off-the-dock league.
The NHL ought to take notes. You’re probably not going to change hockey’s ‘fun=dangerous-displays-of-individualism’ ethos in the space of a few weeks, but for its own sake, the league might want to try.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — DeMar DeRozan scored 27 points in a record-setting performance and the Sacramento Kings beat the Toronto Raptors 122-107 on Wednesday night.
Domantas Sabonis added 17 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds for his third triple-double of the season for Sacramento. He shot 6 for 6 from the field and 5 for 5 at the free-throw line.
Keegan Murray chipped in with 22 points and 12 rebounds, and De’Aaron Fox scored 21.
The 35-year-old DeRozan has scored at least 20 points in each of his first eight games with the Kings, breaking a franchise mark established by Chris Webber when he reached 20 in his first seven games with Sacramento in 1999.
DeRozan spent the past three seasons with the Chicago Bulls. The six-time All-Star also has played for Toronto and San Antonio during his 16-year NBA career.
RJ Barrett had 23 points to lead the Raptors. Davion Mitchell scored 20 in his first game in Sacramento since being traded to Toronto last summer.
Takeaways
Raptors: Toronto led for most of the first three quarters before wilting in the fourth. The Raptors were outscored 33-14 in the final period.
Kings: Fox played strong defense but struggled again shooting from the floor as he is dealing with a finger injury. Fox went 5 for 17 and just 2 of 8 on 3-pointers. He is 5 for 25 from beyond the arc in his last three games.
Key moment
The Kings trailed 95-89 early in the fourth before going on a 9-0 run that gave them the lead for good. DeRozan started the spurt with a jumper, and Malik Monk scored the final seven points.
Key stat
Sabonis had the eighth game in the NBA since at least 1982-83 with a triple-double while missing no shots from the field or foul line. The previous player to do it was Josh Giddey for Oklahoma City against Portland on Jan. 11.
Up next
Raptors: At the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday night, the third stop on a five-game trip.
VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Whitecaps are one win away from moving on to the next round of the Major League Soccer playoffs.
To get there, however, the Whitecaps will need to pull off the improbable by defeating the powerhouse Los Angeles FC for a second straight game.
Vancouver blanked the visitors 3-0 on Sunday to level their best-of-three first-round playoff series at a game apiece. As the matchup shifts back to California for a decisive Game 3 on Friday, the Whitecaps are looking for a repeat performance, said striker Brian White.
“We take the good and the bad from last game, learn from what we could have done better and go to LAFC with confidence and, obviously, with a whole lot of respect,” he said.
“We know that we can go there and give them a very good fight and hopefully come away with a win.”
The winner of Friday’s game will face the No. 4-seed Seattle Sounders in a one-game Western Conference semifinal on Nov. 23 or 24.
The ‘Caps finished the regular season eighth in the west with a 13-13-8 record and have since surprised many with their post-season play.
First, Vancouver trounced its regional rivals, the Portland Timbers, 5-0 in a wild-card game. Then, the squad dropped a tightly contested 2-1 decision to the top-seeded L.A. before posting a decisive home victory on Sunday.
Vancouver has scored seven goals this post-season, second only to the L.A. Galaxy (nine). Vancouver also leads the league in expected goals (6.84) through the playoffs.
No one outside of the club expected the Whitecaps to win when the Vancouver-L. A. series began, said defender Ranko Veselinovic.
“We’ve shown to ourselves that we can compete with them,” he said.
Now in his fifth season with the ‘Caps, Veselinovic said Friday’s game will be the biggest he’s played for the team.
“We haven’t had much success in the playoffs so, definitely, this is the one that can put our season on another level,” he said.
This is the second year in a row the Whitecaps have faced LAFC in the first round of the playoffs and last year, Vancouver was ousted in two straight games.
The team isn’t thinking about revenge as it prepares for Game 3, White said.
“More importantly than (beating LAFC), we want to get to the next round,” he said. “LAFC’s a very good team. We’ve come up against them a number of times in different competitions and they always seem to get the better of us. So it’d be huge for us to get the better of them this time.”
Earning a win last weekend required slowing L.A.’s transition game and limiting offensive opportunities for the team’s big stars, including Denis Bouanga.
Those factors will be important again on Friday, said Whitecaps head coach Vanni Sartini, who warned that his team could face a different style of game.
“I think the most important thing is going to be to match their intensity at the beginning of the game,” he said. “Because I think they’re going to come at us a million miles per hour.”
The ‘Caps will once again look to captain Ryan Gauld for some offensive firepower. The Scottish attacking midfielder leads MLS in playoff goals with five and has scored in all three of Vancouver’s post-season appearances this year.
Gearing up for another do-or-die matchup is exciting, Gauld said.
“Knowing it’s a winner-takes-all kind of game, being in that kind of environment is nice,” he said. “It’s when you see the best in players.”
LAFC faces the bulk of the pressure heading into the matchup, Sartini said, given the club’s appearances in the last two MLS Cup finals and its 2022 championship title.
“They’re supposed to win and we are not,” the coach said. “But it’s beautiful to have a little bit of pressure on us, too.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
Each PWHL team operated under its city name, with players wearing jerseys featuring the league’s logo in its inaugural season before names and logos were announced last month.
The Toronto Sceptres, Montreal Victoire, Ottawa Charge, Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost and New York Sirens will start the PWHL’s second season on Nov. 30 with jerseys designed to reflect each team’s identity and to be sold to the public as replicas.
Led by PWHL vice-president of brand and marketing Kanan Bhatt-Shah, the league consulted Creative Agency Flower Shop to design the jerseys manufactured by Bauer, the PWHL said Thursday in a statement.
“Players and fans alike have been waiting for this moment and we couldn’t be happier with the six unique looks each team will don moving forward,” said PWHL senior vice president of business operations Amy Scheer.
“These jerseys mark the latest evolution in our league’s history, and we can’t wait to see them showcased both on the ice and in the stands.”
Training camps open Tuesday with teams allowed to carry 32 players.
Each team’s 23-player roster, plus three reserves, will be announced Nov. 27.
Each team will play 30 regular-season games, which is six more than the first season.
Minnesota won the first Walter Cup on May 29 by beating Boston three games to two in the championship series.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
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