Everything seemed fine. Then, it wasn’t.
That’s kinda how Thunder head coach Billy Donovan described the events at Chesapeake Energy Arena on the night of March 11. On that night, the world learned that Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz had become the NBA’s patient zero.
The news quickly spread, and the bench leader for Oklahoma City had what can easily be classified as a memorable night — one that was memorable for the wrong reasons.
Shortly before the game was scheduled to tip-off, Thunder vice president of human and player performance Donnie Strack sprinted out to the court to deliver the news to the NBA officials assigned to the contest, and Donovan had a front-row seat. He just didn’t immediately think anything was wrong.
As the NBA’s suspension of play continues, on Friday, Donovan was a guest on the NABC Championship Basketball Webinar Series. After his presentation, he answered questions for nearly an hour, including one related to the events that unfolded on the night of March 11.
Donovan’s account was shared and was reported by Maddie Lee of The Oklahoman. The coach recalled thinking that the impromptu conference between the league’s officials and the Thunder front office was related to the coronavirus pandemic, but not that the league’s worst fear had been realized.
“I thought it was a little bit strange,” Donovan said, “but then again I thought, OK, with everyone talking about this pandemic and the coronavirus and all that was going on, a lot of it I thought was just him helping the officials: ‘Hey, if you need to keep the ball wiped down, if you need to wash your hands during a timeout, here things are available on the sidelines for you guys.’ I just thought he was talking to them because we had had some education on how to do hand-washing, sanitizing, that kind of stuff. Social distancing wasn’t in at that point in time.
Shortly thereafter, Donovan realized that something was up when one of the Thunder’s assistant general managers joined the conference. Before long, the coaches of each team were notified that they were to take their teams back to their locker rooms and await additional instruction.
“At that point,” Donovan said, “the officials said that we needed to postpone the game, both teams should go back to the locker room, just wait there and wait for further instruction. And then we got word in our locker room that the game was canceled, we weren’t going to play, and what they did is they held everybody there.”
Many Thunder players, including Danilo Gallinari, echoed similar sentiments. The team was quarantined in their locker room for several hours after the cancellation of the contest and were given temperature checks before being permitted to depart.
Since then, things have been anything but normal. Teams are no convening, training facilities remain closed and there’s no telling when — or even if — the league will be able to complete its 2019-20 season.
To this point, there have been many players who have been personally impacted by COVID-19. Aside from Gobert, Donovan Mitchell, Marcus Smart and Kevin Durant each tested positive for the disease while Karl-Anthony Towns lost his mother due to complications from it.
Collectively, we hope that better days are ahead, but as Donovan looks back on the night of March 11, one thing is for sure — he’ll never forget it.